Three essays in environmental economic

This dissertation addresses the benefits, costs, effectiveness, and value of conservation and environmental programs in three contexts. The first chapter develops a framework of conditions for determining when transboundary protected areas will be superior to isolated protected areas at achieving conservation objectives, even in the absence of international cooperative park management. These conditions are tested for three common conservation objectives. The results suggest that when the objective of conservation is species persistence or interior habitat, conservation groups should encourage transboundary protected areas. However, when the objective of conservation is to extend reserve coverage to the maximum number of species, conservation groups should encourage protected areas where species richness is greatest, whether or not these areas span international borders.;The second chapter uses a long-running yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) nest count in New Zealand to compare the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of three commonly used endangered species recovery treatments---trapping of introduced predators, revegetation, and intensive management. Of the three treatments that we analyze, only intensive management is significantly correlated with increases in annual site-level yellow-eyed penguin population growth rate. We estimate that intensive management increased the yellow-eyed penguin population by 9% above the counterfactual, and that the average cost of producing an additional yellow-eyed penguin nest through intensive management is NZ$68,600.;The third chapter estimates the responsiveness of surfers and beachgoers to beach advisories and the "72 hour rule" using four years of beach count data at one beach in Southern California. We find that neither surfing nor beach going decreased during beach advisories, but surfing decreased by 14.2% and beach going decreased by 31.2% for every 25 mm of rain in the past 72 hours. We use these responsiveness estimates to value beach advisories and the 72 hour rule, and to estimate the scope for increasing social welfare from three types of improvement to the coastal water health risk notification system. Improved accuracy in the timing of advisories, combined with increased responsiveness to advisories, could increase surfer welfare by up to an average of $6.39 per visit.