Brad Gentner - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Brad Gentner

Ecological Indicators, 2016

The study carried out a comparison of the value estimated both in recreational and commercial fis... more The study carried out a comparison of the value estimated both in recreational and commercial fisheries for billfish in the Caribbean. The recreational value was found to be much higher than the value in the commercial sector but total estimates should be treated with caution due to the uncertainty of the raw data available. Enough value exists in recreational sector to compensate losses in commercial sector. Billfish commercial fishery responsible for much less than one percent of total Caribbean seafood value (between 0.36 percent and 0.84 percent). Most recreationally caught billfish released with high survival. In general, there is a need for better data regarding landings, effort, supply chain in both sectors. This report develops the background on ecosystem values as they relate to billfish stocks in the Caribbean, defining the terminology and state of the art in valuation science in general and the state of billfish valuation in the Caribbean region in particular. Types of value, including market and non-market, are defined and the basic estimations techniques used to value billfish across commercial and recreational sectors are detailed and described as they related to this project. Benefit transfer, due to data and time limitations, is ultimately the only avenue available for this desk study. Caveats regarding the transfer of benefits from studies within the region and outside the region are briefly discussed. The results of an exhaustive literature search for commercial and recreational billfish values are summarized. The values identified are applied to current commercial and recreational landings demonstrating that recreational values are higher than commercial values in the region when only a limited number of countries with recreational billfish fisheries are included. There are many caveats with this analysis, however the results presented here can be used to develop more detailed value propositions when more data becomes available. It is anticipated that as the country selection process moves forward, that more detailed analyses of the value proposition can be made for those countries that may be selected for participation in the business cases. v CONTENTS Preparation of this document .

Beginning in 1998 on the East Coast of the United States (US) and ending on the West Coast of the... more Beginning in 1998 on the East Coast of the United States (US) and ending on the West Coast of the US in 2000, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) conducted a series of surveys to gauge marine recreational angler expenditures by region. These surveys were conducted using the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS) to gather a sample frame for a telephone follow-up survey focusing on trip and annual expenditures. Since the MRFSS was not conducted in Alaska, Hawaii, or Texas during this timeframe, those states were not included in the analysis. NMFS repeated this effort in 2006, but altered the methodology for a number of reasons. For the 2006 effort, the MRFSS survey was used to collect trip expenditures in the field and collect a sample frame for a follow-up mail survey of annual expenditures on the East and Gulf Coasts. For the California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and Texas, states not participating in the MRFSS in 2006, a license frame mail survey was conducted collecting both trip and annual expenditure information. Additionally, recreational Highly Migratory Species permit holders were also surveyed, a telephone survey of non-respondents was conducted, and a side-byside survey mode comparison was conducted. Selected expenditure and economic impact estimates will be presented based on completion of impact modeling currently underway. Also, a comparison of expenditures across respondents and non-respondents, across mail and telephone modes, and between HMS permit holders and general anglers will be presented.

Upon request by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission (EIFAC), group of prominent eco... more Upon request by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission (EIFAC), group of prominent economists and other social scientist were assembled to create a set of guidelines for assessing socioeconomic benefits of the European inland recreational fisheries. A wide range of international interest groups and academics were included in this process that has resulted in a document aimed at politicians and other noneconomist, non-social scientists. It is hoped that this document will be used with the European community to better utilize the social sciences in the creation of inland fisheries policy. The guidelines help users select the proper methodologies using secondary data, and, if secondary data does not exist, helps users to decide what primary data needs to be collected and how to collect that data. This presentation will chronicle the development and content of the guidelines with particular attention to difference in European and North American fisheries management.

This paper describes a bioeconomic model of a coastal recreational fishery that combines standard... more This paper describes a bioeconomic model of a coastal recreational fishery that combines standard models of fish population dynamics, recreational catch, and recreation site choice. The population model estimates the influence of water quality on overall fish abundance through the effects of dissolved oxygen (DO) on the survivorship of young juvenile fish. The catch model estimates the influence of fish abundance and water quality on anglers' average catch rates. The recreation demand model estimates welfare effects and changes in trip demand from changes in catch rates. The bioeconomic model also accounts for the feedback on the fish population through changes in the overall harvest pressure in the recreational fishery on the fish stock. The population model is specified using data on survival and reproduction from the fisheries science literature and government reports, and the model is calibrated using average historic recreational harvest levels in and out of the study area and historic commercial harvest levels for the entire fishery. The catch model is estimated using data on a sample of anglers who fished for summer flounder, data on water quality conditions from 23 water quality monitoring stations, and fishery-independent data on fish abundance collected in bottom trawl surveys, all in Maryland's coastal bays in 2002. The recreation demand model is estimated using data from a stated choice survey of anglers who fish for summer flounder on the Atlantic coast. The bioeconomic model is used to estimate the aggregate benefits to recreational anglers from several illustrative scenarios of changes in water quality. The results indicate that improving water quality throughout the range of the species could lead to substantial increases in the fish population and associated benefits to recreational anglers from increased catch rates. Water quality improvements confined to Maryland's coastal bays alone would have much smaller impacts.

Washington, DC, under Contract Number M14PC00002. This report has been technically reviewed by BO... more Washington, DC, under Contract Number M14PC00002. This report has been technically reviewed by BOEM and it has been approved for publication. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the U.S. Government, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

Blackwell Publishing Ltd eBooks, Apr 15, 2008

Fisheries managers need to measure participation rates and patterns to understand how anglers wil... more Fisheries managers need to measure participation rates and patterns to understand how anglers will respond to management actions and to changes in the recreational landscape. Understanding substitution in recreational fishing is an important component of gauging anglers' behavioural response to these changes. Substitution has implications for licence sales if anglers switch to different activities, stock impacts if anglers switch to different species and crowding if anglers switch locations. In this chapter, current methodologies used by social psychologists and economists to measure activity substitution, target-species substitution and site substitution are discussed. Each disciplinary approach reviews several studies that directly or indirectly examined angler substitution giving the reader the background necessary for more in-depth examination of substitution. Finally, both disciplinary approaches are compared and contrasted with an eye towards integrating substitution research across the two disciplines.

Since 1979, the United States has been collecting data on marine recreational angling with the Ma... more Since 1979, the United States has been collecting data on marine recreational angling with the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS). To enable the estimation of travel cost models of recreational demand the base MRFSS survey has been amended to include necessary data elements. Additionally, data is collected that will enable the estimation of economic impact models. In this paper, the economic surveying strategy of the United States for marine recreational angling is presented. The discussion will focus on the key data elements we have identified for both valuation and economic impact modeling.

This document provides the findings and recommendations from a desk study carried out in support ... more This document provides the findings and recommendations from a desk study carried out in support of the Caribbean Billfish Project. It includes an analysis of the motivating factors for rights based approaches in order to address the common pool fishery problems which dissipate rents. Human action depends on the fisheries management approaches followed. The study recognizes that it is a challenge to apply rights based approaches in the developing world. The author states that the answer is to secure rights to the fishery to end the race to fish and to put proper incentives in place to increase wealth and sustainability. The document also describes the characteristics of strong rights and several rights based approaches in commercial and recreational fisheries for billfish.. Fishery management can be characterized by top-down management controls. These controls are politicized during their creation with user groups lobbying for their own interests. As a result regulations are typically less stringent than they should be from a conservation perspective. Additionally, top down controls induce a race to fish. That is, fishermen act in their own best interest to catch as much of a limited stock as possible while competing against their fellow fishermen. This induces all sorts of strategic behavior that runs contrary to the best intended top down controls. Management goals can be met easier at a lower cost and generate higher value for the resource owners when fisher incentives are taken into account. Regulators can attempt to control mortality through top down command and control regulations or through actions that take fisher incentives into account. Regulations that take incentives into account are called incentive compatible regulations and are designed to maximize economic value by inducing fishers to truthfully reveal their preferences elicited by the policy device. Incentive compatible tools include right or tenure based regimes, taxes or royalties or community based management. Regulations that do not take into account incentives are destined to fail and the bycatch of billfish in the Caribbean is an example of this type of failure as billfish resources are overexploited in the industrial and small scale fisheries and value is being lost in the recreational fishery. Current, top down management policies block the natural behavior and preferences of commercial harvesters, small scale fishers and recreational anglers such that their normal behavior subverts the goal of the mechanism. v CONTENTS Preparation of this document .

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is mandated by law to analyze the benefits, costs, a... more The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is mandated by law to analyze the benefits, costs, and economic impacts of the recreational fisheries policies it promulgates. NMFS has developed single species models that predict welfare and effort changes stemming from changes in various recreational regulations. Little is known, however, about angler switching behavior between species in the face of these same policy changes. That is, as regulations are tightened for one species do those anglers quit fishing entirely or switch to a substitute species with less stringent regulations? Estimating these relationships requires specialized data collections involving long-term panel studies to gauge revealed preferences or the presentation of hypothetical scenarios to elicit stated preferences. NMFS is currently pursuing the latter; conducting a stated preference mail survey that presents anglers a series of choice scenarios that vary in quality, policy, and species target attributes, and asks them to choose a preferred trip. Species included in the scenarios include grouper, red snapper, king mackerel, and dolphin fish. This data collection will field surveys monthly through August 2004 using anglers sampled during the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS) creel survey and the MRFSS random digit dial survey of coastal households in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast states of the US. This paper presents the preliminary results of the stated preference survey, including a random utility model that examines the substitution of target species under different policy scenarios.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (MSRA) of 2006 (Publ... more The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (MSRA) of 2006 (Public Law 109-479) amends the Moratorium Protection Act (Public Law 104_43) requiring the United States (US) to take actions to address illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing and bycatch of protected living marine resources on the high seas and in areas not covered by international management bodies. MSRA requires a process to certify fishing nations' ability to address these concerns and gives each nation a positive or negative certification. A nation receiving a negative certification faces denial of US port privileges and trade sanctions on fishery products. This presentation will focus on the examination of the potential ramifications of reduced supplies of imports on the U.S. economy. Two general metrics will be considered: (1) consumer benefits in the form of compensating variation and consumer surplus, and (2) impacts in terms of changes in income and employment. Metric (1) will also require an assessment of changes in prices and revenues. Assessment of the changes in compensating variation or consumer benefits involved the estimation of demand equations for shrimp, one of the species that would be likely candidates in the event of negative certifications. Impacts will be assessed by using an existing input/output (I/O) model updated to reflect more current economic activity.

The Secretary of Commerce has determined that the publication of this series is necessary in the ... more The Secretary of Commerce has determined that the publication of this series is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of this Department. Use of funds for printing of this series has been approved by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Social Science Research Network, 2011

Independent experts and politicians have criticized statistical analyses of recreation behavior, ... more Independent experts and politicians have criticized statistical analyses of recreation behavior, which rely upon onsite samples due to their potential for biased inference. The use of onsite sampling usually reflects data or budgetary constraints, but can lead to two primary forms of bias in site choice models. First, the strategy entails sampling site choices rather than sampling individuals-a form of bias called endogenous stratification. Under these conditions, sample choices may not reflect the site choices of the true population. Second, exogenous attributes of the individuals sampled onsite may differ from the attributes of individuals in the population-the most common form in recreation demand is avidity bias. We propose addressing these biases by combining two the existing methods: Weighted Exogenous Stratification Maximum Likelihood estimation and propensity score estimation. We use the National Marine Fisheries Service's Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey to illustrate methods of bias reduction, employing both simulated and empirical applications. We find that propensity score based weights can significantly reduce bias in estimation. Our results indicate that failure to account for these biases can overstate anglers' willingness to pay for improvements in fishing catch, but weighted models exhibit higher variance of parameter estimates and willingness to pay.

Ecological Indicators, 2016

The study carried out a comparison of the value estimated both in recreational and commercial fis... more The study carried out a comparison of the value estimated both in recreational and commercial fisheries for billfish in the Caribbean. The recreational value was found to be much higher than the value in the commercial sector but total estimates should be treated with caution due to the uncertainty of the raw data available. Enough value exists in recreational sector to compensate losses in commercial sector. Billfish commercial fishery responsible for much less than one percent of total Caribbean seafood value (between 0.36 percent and 0.84 percent). Most recreationally caught billfish released with high survival. In general, there is a need for better data regarding landings, effort, supply chain in both sectors. This report develops the background on ecosystem values as they relate to billfish stocks in the Caribbean, defining the terminology and state of the art in valuation science in general and the state of billfish valuation in the Caribbean region in particular. Types of value, including market and non-market, are defined and the basic estimations techniques used to value billfish across commercial and recreational sectors are detailed and described as they related to this project. Benefit transfer, due to data and time limitations, is ultimately the only avenue available for this desk study. Caveats regarding the transfer of benefits from studies within the region and outside the region are briefly discussed. The results of an exhaustive literature search for commercial and recreational billfish values are summarized. The values identified are applied to current commercial and recreational landings demonstrating that recreational values are higher than commercial values in the region when only a limited number of countries with recreational billfish fisheries are included. There are many caveats with this analysis, however the results presented here can be used to develop more detailed value propositions when more data becomes available. It is anticipated that as the country selection process moves forward, that more detailed analyses of the value proposition can be made for those countries that may be selected for participation in the business cases. v CONTENTS Preparation of this document .

Beginning in 1998 on the East Coast of the United States (US) and ending on the West Coast of the... more Beginning in 1998 on the East Coast of the United States (US) and ending on the West Coast of the US in 2000, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) conducted a series of surveys to gauge marine recreational angler expenditures by region. These surveys were conducted using the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS) to gather a sample frame for a telephone follow-up survey focusing on trip and annual expenditures. Since the MRFSS was not conducted in Alaska, Hawaii, or Texas during this timeframe, those states were not included in the analysis. NMFS repeated this effort in 2006, but altered the methodology for a number of reasons. For the 2006 effort, the MRFSS survey was used to collect trip expenditures in the field and collect a sample frame for a follow-up mail survey of annual expenditures on the East and Gulf Coasts. For the California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and Texas, states not participating in the MRFSS in 2006, a license frame mail survey was conducted collecting both trip and annual expenditure information. Additionally, recreational Highly Migratory Species permit holders were also surveyed, a telephone survey of non-respondents was conducted, and a side-byside survey mode comparison was conducted. Selected expenditure and economic impact estimates will be presented based on completion of impact modeling currently underway. Also, a comparison of expenditures across respondents and non-respondents, across mail and telephone modes, and between HMS permit holders and general anglers will be presented.

Upon request by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission (EIFAC), group of prominent eco... more Upon request by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission (EIFAC), group of prominent economists and other social scientist were assembled to create a set of guidelines for assessing socioeconomic benefits of the European inland recreational fisheries. A wide range of international interest groups and academics were included in this process that has resulted in a document aimed at politicians and other noneconomist, non-social scientists. It is hoped that this document will be used with the European community to better utilize the social sciences in the creation of inland fisheries policy. The guidelines help users select the proper methodologies using secondary data, and, if secondary data does not exist, helps users to decide what primary data needs to be collected and how to collect that data. This presentation will chronicle the development and content of the guidelines with particular attention to difference in European and North American fisheries management.

This paper describes a bioeconomic model of a coastal recreational fishery that combines standard... more This paper describes a bioeconomic model of a coastal recreational fishery that combines standard models of fish population dynamics, recreational catch, and recreation site choice. The population model estimates the influence of water quality on overall fish abundance through the effects of dissolved oxygen (DO) on the survivorship of young juvenile fish. The catch model estimates the influence of fish abundance and water quality on anglers' average catch rates. The recreation demand model estimates welfare effects and changes in trip demand from changes in catch rates. The bioeconomic model also accounts for the feedback on the fish population through changes in the overall harvest pressure in the recreational fishery on the fish stock. The population model is specified using data on survival and reproduction from the fisheries science literature and government reports, and the model is calibrated using average historic recreational harvest levels in and out of the study area and historic commercial harvest levels for the entire fishery. The catch model is estimated using data on a sample of anglers who fished for summer flounder, data on water quality conditions from 23 water quality monitoring stations, and fishery-independent data on fish abundance collected in bottom trawl surveys, all in Maryland's coastal bays in 2002. The recreation demand model is estimated using data from a stated choice survey of anglers who fish for summer flounder on the Atlantic coast. The bioeconomic model is used to estimate the aggregate benefits to recreational anglers from several illustrative scenarios of changes in water quality. The results indicate that improving water quality throughout the range of the species could lead to substantial increases in the fish population and associated benefits to recreational anglers from increased catch rates. Water quality improvements confined to Maryland's coastal bays alone would have much smaller impacts.

Washington, DC, under Contract Number M14PC00002. This report has been technically reviewed by BO... more Washington, DC, under Contract Number M14PC00002. This report has been technically reviewed by BOEM and it has been approved for publication. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the U.S. Government, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.

Blackwell Publishing Ltd eBooks, Apr 15, 2008

Fisheries managers need to measure participation rates and patterns to understand how anglers wil... more Fisheries managers need to measure participation rates and patterns to understand how anglers will respond to management actions and to changes in the recreational landscape. Understanding substitution in recreational fishing is an important component of gauging anglers' behavioural response to these changes. Substitution has implications for licence sales if anglers switch to different activities, stock impacts if anglers switch to different species and crowding if anglers switch locations. In this chapter, current methodologies used by social psychologists and economists to measure activity substitution, target-species substitution and site substitution are discussed. Each disciplinary approach reviews several studies that directly or indirectly examined angler substitution giving the reader the background necessary for more in-depth examination of substitution. Finally, both disciplinary approaches are compared and contrasted with an eye towards integrating substitution research across the two disciplines.

Since 1979, the United States has been collecting data on marine recreational angling with the Ma... more Since 1979, the United States has been collecting data on marine recreational angling with the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS). To enable the estimation of travel cost models of recreational demand the base MRFSS survey has been amended to include necessary data elements. Additionally, data is collected that will enable the estimation of economic impact models. In this paper, the economic surveying strategy of the United States for marine recreational angling is presented. The discussion will focus on the key data elements we have identified for both valuation and economic impact modeling.

This document provides the findings and recommendations from a desk study carried out in support ... more This document provides the findings and recommendations from a desk study carried out in support of the Caribbean Billfish Project. It includes an analysis of the motivating factors for rights based approaches in order to address the common pool fishery problems which dissipate rents. Human action depends on the fisheries management approaches followed. The study recognizes that it is a challenge to apply rights based approaches in the developing world. The author states that the answer is to secure rights to the fishery to end the race to fish and to put proper incentives in place to increase wealth and sustainability. The document also describes the characteristics of strong rights and several rights based approaches in commercial and recreational fisheries for billfish.. Fishery management can be characterized by top-down management controls. These controls are politicized during their creation with user groups lobbying for their own interests. As a result regulations are typically less stringent than they should be from a conservation perspective. Additionally, top down controls induce a race to fish. That is, fishermen act in their own best interest to catch as much of a limited stock as possible while competing against their fellow fishermen. This induces all sorts of strategic behavior that runs contrary to the best intended top down controls. Management goals can be met easier at a lower cost and generate higher value for the resource owners when fisher incentives are taken into account. Regulators can attempt to control mortality through top down command and control regulations or through actions that take fisher incentives into account. Regulations that take incentives into account are called incentive compatible regulations and are designed to maximize economic value by inducing fishers to truthfully reveal their preferences elicited by the policy device. Incentive compatible tools include right or tenure based regimes, taxes or royalties or community based management. Regulations that do not take into account incentives are destined to fail and the bycatch of billfish in the Caribbean is an example of this type of failure as billfish resources are overexploited in the industrial and small scale fisheries and value is being lost in the recreational fishery. Current, top down management policies block the natural behavior and preferences of commercial harvesters, small scale fishers and recreational anglers such that their normal behavior subverts the goal of the mechanism. v CONTENTS Preparation of this document .

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is mandated by law to analyze the benefits, costs, a... more The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is mandated by law to analyze the benefits, costs, and economic impacts of the recreational fisheries policies it promulgates. NMFS has developed single species models that predict welfare and effort changes stemming from changes in various recreational regulations. Little is known, however, about angler switching behavior between species in the face of these same policy changes. That is, as regulations are tightened for one species do those anglers quit fishing entirely or switch to a substitute species with less stringent regulations? Estimating these relationships requires specialized data collections involving long-term panel studies to gauge revealed preferences or the presentation of hypothetical scenarios to elicit stated preferences. NMFS is currently pursuing the latter; conducting a stated preference mail survey that presents anglers a series of choice scenarios that vary in quality, policy, and species target attributes, and asks them to choose a preferred trip. Species included in the scenarios include grouper, red snapper, king mackerel, and dolphin fish. This data collection will field surveys monthly through August 2004 using anglers sampled during the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey (MRFSS) creel survey and the MRFSS random digit dial survey of coastal households in the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast states of the US. This paper presents the preliminary results of the stated preference survey, including a random utility model that examines the substitution of target species under different policy scenarios.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (MSRA) of 2006 (Publ... more The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act (MSRA) of 2006 (Public Law 109-479) amends the Moratorium Protection Act (Public Law 104_43) requiring the United States (US) to take actions to address illegal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU) fishing and bycatch of protected living marine resources on the high seas and in areas not covered by international management bodies. MSRA requires a process to certify fishing nations' ability to address these concerns and gives each nation a positive or negative certification. A nation receiving a negative certification faces denial of US port privileges and trade sanctions on fishery products. This presentation will focus on the examination of the potential ramifications of reduced supplies of imports on the U.S. economy. Two general metrics will be considered: (1) consumer benefits in the form of compensating variation and consumer surplus, and (2) impacts in terms of changes in income and employment. Metric (1) will also require an assessment of changes in prices and revenues. Assessment of the changes in compensating variation or consumer benefits involved the estimation of demand equations for shrimp, one of the species that would be likely candidates in the event of negative certifications. Impacts will be assessed by using an existing input/output (I/O) model updated to reflect more current economic activity.

The Secretary of Commerce has determined that the publication of this series is necessary in the ... more The Secretary of Commerce has determined that the publication of this series is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of this Department. Use of funds for printing of this series has been approved by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Social Science Research Network, 2011

Independent experts and politicians have criticized statistical analyses of recreation behavior, ... more Independent experts and politicians have criticized statistical analyses of recreation behavior, which rely upon onsite samples due to their potential for biased inference. The use of onsite sampling usually reflects data or budgetary constraints, but can lead to two primary forms of bias in site choice models. First, the strategy entails sampling site choices rather than sampling individuals-a form of bias called endogenous stratification. Under these conditions, sample choices may not reflect the site choices of the true population. Second, exogenous attributes of the individuals sampled onsite may differ from the attributes of individuals in the population-the most common form in recreation demand is avidity bias. We propose addressing these biases by combining two the existing methods: Weighted Exogenous Stratification Maximum Likelihood estimation and propensity score estimation. We use the National Marine Fisheries Service's Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey to illustrate methods of bias reduction, employing both simulated and empirical applications. We find that propensity score based weights can significantly reduce bias in estimation. Our results indicate that failure to account for these biases can overstate anglers' willingness to pay for improvements in fishing catch, but weighted models exhibit higher variance of parameter estimates and willingness to pay.