Economies of Scope in Endangered-Species Protection: Evidence from Interest-Group Behavior

Abstract

This paper looks for positive spillovers from the legal protection of one species to the welfare of others, and for evidence of economies of scope in the costs associated with protecting species under the Endangered Species Act. The analyses use data on the intensity of interestgroup comment activity in response to proposals to protect new species. The results suggest that these phenomena are significant, strengthening arguments that wildlife-protection policy should be shifted towards species groups or ecosystems. However, the findings are also consistent with diminishing public willingness-to-pay for protected species in a given area, a pattern which also has public-policy implications.

Political influence on historical ESA listings by state: a count data analysis

“…Cash (2001), using data for 1989-1991, found that, on average, species located in a state having a subcommittee member on the Interior subcommittee of the US Senate received greater funding than species without such representation. Ando (1999Ando ( , 2001Ando ( , 2003 has conducted extensive research on the role that political factors such as congressional representation and interest group behavior play in the implementation of the ESA. In examining the role of public influence on the timing of listing decisions, Ando (1999Ando ( ), using data for 1990Ando ( -1994, found that all of the explanatory variables used to measure the effect of public and political influence (including whether or not a species had a "pro-environmental" or "pro-developmental" congressional representative on an ESA reauthorization subcommittee) on the timing of listing decisions were significant in at least one stage of the listing process.…”

Counteractive Lobbying in the U.S. Supreme Court

“…We recognize that a number of candidates can be used as the unit of analysis (e.g., Ando, 2001Ando, , 2003Austen-Smith & Wright, 1996;Baumgartner & Leech, 1996b;Gormley & Cymrot, 2006;McKay & Yackee, 2007; see also Hansford, 2004;Martinek, 2006, p. 813). Most obviously, we might employ the group-case dyad to investigate counteractive lobbying, by tying each interest group to each case decided by the Court.…”

Economies of scope and scale in green advocacy

“…There are two independent decisions to be contested. This is not, then, the sort of planning setting envisaged by Ingberman (1995) and others, whereby failure to site a noxious plant in one locale means that it has to be sited in another; nor Ando (2001) in which the decision to list a particular species first means that others may be pushed later. The pressure groups in each sector will not be competing against each other in this sense.…”

“…Zagonari (1998) analyses the role played by nation-based environmental groups in a multi-national setting, arriving at some interesting counter-intuitive results. Ando (2001) develops a theoretical and empirical model of decisions to list endangered species in the United States, where interested parties exert pressure for, or, against the listing of a particular species.…”