Optimal Regulation of an Age-Structured Animal Population

About the seminar

In this paper we analyze optimal regulation of a renewable resource within an age-structured model using moose in Scandinavia as an example. The population of moose is structured into calves, yearlings and adults, and by comparing the decisions of a private landowner and social planner we identify externalities due to browsing and traffic incidents (browsing and traffic externalities).

The damage costs of the browsing and traffic externalities can be related to the population of moose of each stage. Therefore, separate Pigouvian tax rates on the population of calves, yearlings and adults equal to the marginal damage costs of the externalities imply that the total private and social annual net benefit are identical. Thus, population tax rates secure an optimal steady-state and an optimal dynamic adjustment path towards the steady-state.

In the optimal solution the total harvest of calves and yearlings is zero implying that a total harvest quota on adults equal to the social optimal harvest generates the same level of efficiency as population tax rates. However, we argue that a quota on the harvest of adults raises higher information requirements than population tax rates.

How to participate

The seminar is open to all.
The seminar will take place online via Zoom