Law and Economics student Jacob P. Byl has been admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. His dissertation is titled “Toward More Effective Endangered Species Regulation.” Byl’s committee chair is Professor J.B. Ruhl. Professors Kathryn H. Anderson, Cindy D. Kam, and W. Kip Viscusi comprise the rest of Byl’s dissertation committee.
Summary of the dissertation topic:
The Endangered Species Act (“ESA”) is a strong environmental law that gives federal authorities power to conserve rare species by regulating private and public parties. One consequence of the ESA’s regulatory force and structure is a set of perverse incentives for private landowners to prevent endangered species from moving onto their properties by destroying potential habitat. In chapter one, I plan to study the extent of habitat destruction by examining data from timber harvests near endangered woodpeckers in North Carolina and by evaluating a safe-harbor program intended to dampen the perverse incentives. In chapter two, I propose an experiment to compare the safe-harbor program with other regulatory regimes that could help align the incentives of landowners with those of federal regulators. In chapter three, I explore an alternative way to improve the effectiveness of ESA regulation: implementing cost-benefit analysis with a broad concept of benefits that captures the value of services provided by the ecosystems inhabited by listed species.