Repository logo

Browsing by Author "Seidl, Andrew, advisor"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Assessing the social benefits to stakeholders of place-based forest restoration organizations in Colorado
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Lund Snee, Torsten A., author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Loomis, John, committee member; Cheng, Antony, committee member
    Collaborative forestry organizations such as the Front Range Roundtable provide goods and services to their members which have not yet been valued using economic methodology. The primary good provided by the Front Range Roundtable is quarterly stakeholder meetings where proposed landscape restoration projects are discussed and members are able to reach consensus on appropriate monitoring and implementation without resorting to legal measures. Attendance at these meetings suggests that members derive benefits from attendance and have a positive willingness-to-pay for these goods. This study contributes to the natural resource and environmental economics literature by estimating values associated with the social capital that is developed at collaborative forestry meetings, and should serve to inform the policy debate regarding funding of place-based forestry collaboratives. Attendees at the April 11, 2014 quarterly meeting of the Front Range Roundtable were asked travel cost questions and a dichotomous choice willingness to pay question regarding membership dues for the Front Range Roundtable's quarterly meetings. Results from 50 paper and online surveys indicate that respondents would pay a minimum of $6.60 per quarter to travel to the FRR's quarterly meetings, and a maximum of $83 in membership dues to allow the FRR to continue to provide conflict mediation and resolution services. Generalizing these amounts to the sample yields an annual value of $1,241 for minimum WTP for travel expenses and an annual value of $16,609 for FRR's mediation and conflict resolution services.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Comparing methodologies to estimate tourists' nonconsumptive use values of recreation, roadways and ranches: international and domestic applications
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2007) Ellingson, Lindsey Jo, author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor
    The objective of this dissertation is to compare two nonmarket valuation methods to estimate tourists' nonconsumptive use values of scenic viewscapes in three applications. The two nonmarket valuation techniques analyzed are the contingent behavior and contingent valuation methods. The contingent behavior method asks respondents their intended visitation behavior contingent on a hypothetical change to the good or service in question. The contingent valuation method asks respondents their willingness to pay for a hypothetical change to the good or service in question. The three applications evaluated in this research are a National Reserve in Bolivia, a scenic roadway in Argentine Patagonia and ranch open space in Routt County, Colorado. Specifically, respondents were asked their willingness to pay and travel behavior contingent on improved park service (i.e. tourist information center and naturalist guides) at Eduardo Avaroa Reserve in Bolivia. In Argentina, visitors were asked their willingness to pay and travel behavior to Glaciers National Park contingent on differing levels of development (i.e. telecommunication and mining infrastructure) along the roadway from El Calafate, the gateway community, to Glaciers National Park. For Routt County, tourists were asked how many fewer (or more) dollars per day and number of days they would travel to Routt County if existing ranchlands were converted to urban uses (i.e. housing and other resort development). Quantitative comparative analysis is conducted across the applications to determine whether there is a difference among contingent behavior and contingent valuation responses. The results show that the two methods produce statistical and policy relevant different results. In addition, other analyses were conducted evaluating differences based on survey elicitation languages, tour package purchases, using pictures to measure different levels of development, survey responses across time and regional impact analyses.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Economic effects of oil and gas development on child health in Colorado
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2015) Ekoh, Susan S., author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Suter, Jordan, advisor; Pena, Anita, committee member
    The oil and gas industry is a huge contributor to the economy of many countries and states worldwide. Even though the industry creates jobs and income, debates continue surrounding the environmental and human costs of the industry. There are many health concerns in particular because studies have shown that there is the potential for water and air pollution from emissions that are generated through oil and gas production processes. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge on this issue by exploring the potential economic effects of oil and gas development on child respiratory health. Using state in-patient data from the Agency for Research and Health Quality (ARHQ)-Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), I estimate difference-in-difference results to measure the potential effects of oil and gas production in Colorado over time, between the years 2004 and 2013 and for children between ages 0 and 19. Results reveal that over time from 2004 until 2013, oil and gas had no significant effect on child respiratory health. For individual years, results for 2013 show significant effects. The overall lack of effect of oil and gas development on child respiratory health from this study could be that the respiratory cases reported were as a result of factors other than air pollution from oil and gas activities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Pecuniary and non-pecuniary determinants of household recycling behavior
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2011) Hicks, Erin, author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Kipperberg, Gorm, advisor; Kling, Robert, committee member
    This article examines the effects of both the pecuniary variables (such as prices) traditionally favored by economists and the non-pecuniary variables (such as attitudes and beliefs) preferred by psychologists on household recycling behavior. In order to better explore what decisions households are actually making when they recycle, three dependent variables are examined: recycling rate, waste disposal container size, and time spent recycling. The recycling rate decision is well-explained by a combination of pecuniary and non-pecuniary variables, especially price, difficulty of recycling, and perceived social pressure to recycle. Non-pecuniary variables have the least influence on the how much time respondents spent recycling, which depends primarily on household size. Calculated consumer surplus from recycling activity is $386 per year.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Resource privatization and endogenous production activities: can privatization of a natural resource stock benefit labor?
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2014) Behrer, Arnold Patrick, author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Manning, Dale, committee member; Cutler, Harvey, committee member
    Theoretically, it has been shown that privatization of open access resources results in negative impacts on economy-wide wages paid to labor when the technology used in the resource sector remains constant. Here, we examine a case where there is a change in the optimal use of a renewable resource--open access grassland used for ranching becomes private property for tourism - to show that privatization can improve economy-wide wages in theory. Whether wages improve in practice depends on the nature of the structural change and how labor is used in the privatized activity. To explore the likelihood that wages increase in practice, we use a local general equilibrium model of villages from Chilean Patagonia to investigate the impact of open access grassland privatization on factor wages and the distribution of wealth in an empirical setting.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    The economic consequences of private lands conservation using conservation easements in Colorado
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Swartzentruber, Ryan, author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Jablonski, Becca B. R., committee member; Pejchar, Liba, committee member
    Conservation easements have been used across the United States to preserve natural amenities and compensate landowners for the public goods they provide. From the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program to the Grassland Reserve Program, Colorado conserves 2.4 million acres of land (Colorado Natural Heritage Program and the Geospatial Centroid, 2018) This thesis explores the economic implications of Federal conservation easements through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program in Colorado. Using Input-Output modeling I found that conservation easements contributed $176 million to Colorado's economic activity. Further Multi-Region Input-Output models showed that conservation easements support rural counties between $106 million and $112 million more than two counterfactuals I considered: decreasing federal income tax and a zero counterfactual. Further, using benefit transfer analysis, I estimated that all conservation easements in Colorado provide between $40 and $47 billion in ecosystem service benefits to Coloradoans. Using econometric meta-analysis techniques, I estimated that Coloradoans are willing to pay $4.3 billion for all the conserved lands in Colorado. I propose an alternative payment methodology which incentivizes landowners to enroll environmentally important lands rather than using development opportunity costs to determine payments.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Three essays on the economics of restoring degraded land: from global to local
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2016) Verdone, Michael, author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Frasier, Marshall, advisor; Brown, Thomas, committee member; Brown, Cynthia, committee member
    To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Three essays on weather shocks, nutrition and forests
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Mulungu, Kelvin, author; Manning, Dale, advisor; Seidl, Andrew, advisor; Costanigro, Marco, committee member; Bellows, Laura, committee member
    Climate-related shocks, such as droughts and floods, can have particularly harmful effects for poor rural households in developing countries. In this dissertation, I determine how forests affect a household's ability to cope with shocks, estimate how agricultural input use changes after shocks, and explore a novel explanation for high rates of undernutrition within food-producing households. In the first essay, using data from Malawi, I find that households allocate labor away from agriculture to forests in the event of a weather shock and that access to forests offsets the negative effect of weather shocks on nutrition and food security. In the second essay, I use nationally representative data on smallholder households in Zambia and find that, after a weather shock, households are less likely to use a risky input and more likely to use a less risky input because they become more risk-averse. Access to credit can mitigate the negative impact of a shock on the likelihood of using fertilizer. In the last essay, I use household production and demographic data from a household survey that I conducted in Zambia to measure nutrition deficits created by insufficient food production or food sales that, if consumed at home, would have contributed to household nutrition. I find that nutrient deficits, from either insufficient production or selling output, are detrimental to nutrition and food security. High lean season food prices reduce the quantity of market-bought foods demanded and undermine the ability of households to use income from crop sales to purchase food. In summary, rural households respond to shocks in various ways. Both natural resource access and improved credit markets can offset the negative impacts from a shock while increasing food production and nutrition outcomes.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Valuation of natural resources in a small mountain community: three essays in non-market valuation and rural development
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2009) Cline, Sarah A., author; Seidl, Andrew, advisor
    Natural resources are important to rural economies in terms of the amenities they provide and the economic opportunities they generate for the surrounding communities. In many rural areas, open space provided by ranchlands provides important amenities to tourists and residents. In addition, land use may also affect the local water quality and thus produce further impacts on local amenities and regional economic opportunities. This dissertation looks at the value of ranchland open space and water quality in Chaffee County, Colorado. The value of ranchland open space and water quality to visitors to Chaffee County is estimated using non-market valuation techniques. Two joint-methods are used to obtain values for ranchland open space and water quality. The first method combines travel cost and contingent behavior data, while the second method uses travel cost, contingent behavior and contingent valuation information to estimate values for these resources. A third application combines regional economic analysis with the non-market valuation data to estimate the impacts of decreased natural resource quality on the local economy. The results show loss of ranchland open space will result in welfare losses to visitors to the county and that associated impacts from decreased water quality could significantly increase those losses.