An empirical analysis of the effects of the National Marine Fisheries Service turtle excluder

An evaluation of the effects of the 1989 and 1994 regulations requiring the addition of Turtle Excluder Devices to vessels trawling for shrimp in United States waters is presented in this dissertation. These regulations are intended to protect various species of sea turtle from unintentional harvesting while minimizing the effect on human welfare through lost revenues.; Sea turtle population are examined and tested for improvements using the accepted method of nesting counts. These counts are evaluated in a Fixed Effects Least Squares model using a Chow test to determine if an increase in nesting has occurred that can be attributed to the regulations.; The effect of the regulation on the revenues of the shrimp harvesting market consists of several stages. The first stage is evaluating the nature and components of the marketplace. Such an evaluation determines the geographic and product ranges, concentration, and general market model selection. The institutions that apply to the market are then examined in turn. Finally, the market supply and demand functions are estimated in a Two Stage, Fixed Effects Least Squares model. Chow tests are utilized to determine if a decline in revenue can be inferred to the regulations.; It is determined that evidence does exist to support the hypothesis that the regulations have improved the sea turtle population by 1,293 turtles based solely off of observed areas. Further, it can be inferred that the regulations have also produced an estimated decline of revenues of {dollar}2.7 billion in the market for harvested shrimp.; These results indicate an estimated cost to society of {dollar}2.05 million per adult sea turtle. Further examination indicates that the costs and benefits of the regulations may be divergent. Additional existing recommendations for extensions of the regulations would cause further divergence between the costs and benefits. Finally, existing recommendations ignore developing technologies. As a result, it is recommended that additional research on alternative regulations that consider balancing the economic costs and benefits geographically be considered.