Research
Job Market Paper
Adapting to Environmental Risk: Evidence from the U.S. West Coast’s Most Valuable Fishery.
Abstract:
The effect of environmental shocks on natural resource-extracting firms is determined in part by regulations that constrain their activities. I evaluate how a novel policy to ensure seafood safety following marine heat waves, introduced in response to harmful algal blooms, influenced harvesters’ performance in the West Coast’s most valuable fishery. Granular, vessel-level microdata allows me to track behavioral adjustments made by individual vessels, including substitution in fishing location and changes in overall fishing effort. While prices received by vessels for their catch were lower under the policy than under a no-evisceration counterfactual, vessel behavior changed little in aggregate, and fleet production was largely unaffected. While the policy worked as designed by maintaining harvest flow when the fishery would otherwise be subject to temporary spatial closures, I find significant heterogeneity in vessel-level impacts, with small vessels worse off than large vessels. This research documents a case of largely successful regulatory adaptation to a climate-linked shock while also highlighting the differential effects on segments of the regulated industry
Works in Progress
Joint-Quantity Quality Management and BMP Adoption
Abstract Groundwater pollution from agricultural sources is a growing concern across the United States. The State of Oregon is implementing efforts to reduce nitrate leaching in the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area. This paper presents a dynamic model that accounts for both the stock of water and the stock of water contamination, with farmers choosing an irreversible investment in better management practices.