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Estimating Net Benefits of Reallocation: Discrete Choice Models of Sport and Commercial Fishing
Matthew D. Berman, Sharman Haley, and Hongjin Kim
Increasing conflicts over allocation have heightened interest among fishery managers in reliable and comparable measures of the relative economic contribution of commercial and sport fisheries. This paper shows how discrete choice methods may be applied to develop comparable estimates of net economic benefits of a proposal to reallocate sockeye salmon from the commercial to the sport fishery in Alaska's Kenai River. The study estimates net benefits that include both market and nonmarket use values for three groups of fishers: sport anglers, commercial drift and setnet operators, and their crew members. Results for a midrange scenario for run size and price suggest that the commercial losses roughly offset sport gains. However, the particulars of this fishery are key to this result. The principal advantages of the discrete choice method are the flexibility of a micro decision model and comparable treatment of time and intangibles across different user groups. The principal disadvantages are increased data requirements and the difficulty of estimating confidence intervals.
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Rural Alaska Hydroelectric Assessment: Stage 2 Economic Evaluation of Hydroelectric Projects in Atka, Hoonah, Old Harbor, and Unalaska
Steve Colt
This memorandum summarizes the economic evaluation of four candidate hydroelectric projects. For each site, the evaluation procedure compares the total costs of electric power with and without hydro over a 35 year planning period extending through the year 2032. The memo is organized into four sections, one for each candidate site. An appendix provides further notes on model mechanics.
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Kids Count Alaska 1997
Norman Dinges, Claudia Lampman, Ann Garret, Mera Atlis, Olga Efimova, Alexandra Hill, and Barbara Minton
From 1991 through 1995, nearly 55,400 babies were born in Alaska. The overwhelming majority (89 percent) were born to mothers at least 20 years old. But that still leaves more than 6,000 babies born to teenage mothers during the first half of the 1990s. And more than a third of those babies were born to mothers under 18 years old. Teenage mothers and their children face economic disadvantages (see Births to Teens indicator), but they also face health risks. Half the youngest mothers (15 and under) and nearly four in ten older teenagers get inadequate prenatal care. Even among mothers over 20, one-quarter don’t get adequate prenatal care.About 68 percent of women who had babies in Alaska from 1991 through 1995 were White, 23 percent were Native, 4.5 percent were Black, and 4.5 percent were Asian. One quarter of mothers of all races in Alaska get inadequate prenatal care, but the share is considerably higher among Alaska Native mothers—four in ten.
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Alaska's Economy and Population 1959-2020 Statewide and Regional Economic Projections
Oliver Scott Goldsmith and Alexandra Hill
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Permanent Fund Policy Questions and Informal Review of Proposals for Change
Scott Goldsmith
The growing importance of the Permanent Fund in the fiscal, economic, political and social life of the state requires that we periodically review how it is working, not necessarily to change it, but to ensure that it is continuing to do what is best for Alaska. This paper reviews recent proposals for changes in Permanent Fund policies using a series of questions that each stakeholder should consider. The answers to these questions should help to evaluate those proposals and stimulate thought about the role of the Permanent Fund in Alaska's future. Prepared for Principles and Interests: The Permanent Fund and Alaska's Future, a conference sponsored by the Alaska Humanities Forum.
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Structural Analysis of the Alaska Economy: A Perspective from 1997
Scott Goldsmith
The structure of the Alaska economy is reflected in the share of personal income and employment attributable to each of the BASIC industrial sectors and other external sources of household purchasing power. We identify twelve activities upon which the size and composition of the Alaska economy depends and trace their growth over time. Although an oversimplification of reality, the economic base model is a useful tool for studying the structure of the Alaska economy. In the economic base model, BASIC activities are the source of economic growth for the regional economy. Our analysis offers a consistent methodology but is not a detailed historical investigation of each individual industry. A more comprehensive analysis would further refine the attributions we have made, but we feel that the representation of the structure of the economy presented in this report is valid and useful as a description of the economy.
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Kodiak Population Projections
Scott Goldsmith and Alexandra Hill
The City of Kodiak asked the Institute of Social and Economic Research to generate population projections through 2020 for the city and the adjacent area (Service Area l) served by city sewer. The projections currently used in planning a new wastewater treatment facility extremely high to many knowledgeable observers. ISER reviewed the existing population projections and generated an independent set of projections based on our explicit analysis of the Kodiak economy and demography. In the projections for Kodiak Island Borough. tourism and seafood are the driving factors in explaining projected population growth. Other wage and salary and federal government categories also drive some growth, but are less important.
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Alaska's Gross State Product, 1963-1996: Main Report and Research Summary
Scott Goldsmith and Teresa Hull
The gross state product accounts are presented in 5 tables showing the value of production in current dollars by sector and payment type; the same breakout in 1996 dollars; gross product by industry in current dollars and at the 1987 US average price level respectively; and the implicit price deflators used to convert current to constant dollars. The gross state product accounts are based upon estimates derived from a variety of sources. They should be interpreted as indicative of the level and year to year change in value added by industry and sector rather than as precise amounts.
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Evaluation of the Alaska Native Health Board Sanitation Facility Operation and Maintenance Program and Nine Community Pilot Projects: First-Year Report
Sharman Haley, Rosyland Frazier, and Joe Sarcone
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Management Alternatives for the Guided Sport Fishery for Halibut off Alaska
Marcus Hartley and Scott Goldsmith
The domestic fishery for halibut in and off Alaska is managed by the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) as provided by the ""Convention Between the United States and Canada for the Preservation of the Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea" (Convention) signed at Washington March 29, 1979, and the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 (Halibut Act). The Convention and the Halibut Act authorize the respective North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) established by the Magnuson-Stevens Act to: "develop regulations governing the United States portion of Convention waters, including limited access regulations, applicable to nationals or vessels of the United States, or both which are in addition to and not in conflict with regulation adopted by the Commission. Such regulation shall only be implemented with the approval of the Secretary, shall not discriminate between residents of different States, and shall be consistent with the limited entry criteria set forth in Section 303(b)(6) of the Magnuson Stevens Act. If it becomes necessary to allocate or assign halibut fishing privileges among various United States fishermen, such allocation shall be fair and equitable to all such fishermen, based upon the rights and obligation in existing Federal law, reasonable calculated to promote conservation, and carried in such manner that no particular individual, corporation, or other entity acquires an excessive share o f the halibut fishing privileges ... [Halibut Act]." This document assesses the potential economic and social impacts of a proposed catch reporting system and/or some form of limitation on the growth of the halibut charter boat industry (lodges, outfitters, guides, and charter vessels) operating in waters off Alaska's coast.
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Alaska's Economy and Population 1959-2020
Alexandra Hill and Scott Goldsmith
Understanding Alaska's economy and population helps us evaluate current and future transportation needs. This report summarizes how the economy and population have changed since Alaska became a state and how they are likely to change over the next 25 years.
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Community Control of Alcohol in Alaska
Teresa Hull and Matthew Berman
Many of Alaska’s Native communities want alcohol out of their towns. Alcohol plays a part in everything from domestic violence to high rates of accidental death in rural areas. About 100 communities—mostly small villages off the highway system—have restrictions on selling, importing, or possessing alcohol. A few larger rural regional centers—including Barrow, Bethel, and Kotzebue—also have controls on alcohol. Gulkana on the Richardson Highway recently became the first community on a major highway to ban alcohol under state law. Both municipalities and unincorporated places can control the availability of alcohol under Alaska’s local option law. This paper looks at the status of communities under that law and briefly reviews the history of community alcohol control under state and federal law.
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Timber Harvest and Wood Products Manufacture in Alaska - 1995 and 1996 Update
Teresa Hull and Alexandra Hill
This report provides information about the timber and wood products industry gathered from a variety of sources. It includes data for the entire state and for three regions within the state, and brings together previously available data on timber harvests and wood products exports, as well as new data derived from information ISER collected in surveys of loggers and wood processors. We hope the data will be useful for both public and private planning efforts, as well as informed policy debate over timber management and development of the forest products industry.
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Going Private: The 1968 Sale of the Alaska Communication System
Douglas Jones and Bradford Tuck
Putting the Alaska long-distance system in private hands was a public policy success. Except for improved service for bush communities, the goals of the sale were all met or exceeded within 10 years. Problems with the adequacy, quality, and reliability of service persisted under RCA. Some problems can be traced to the ownership and management of RC - but the fast growth of demand; an uncertain regulatory environment; lack of a comprehensive telecommunications plan; and state intervention in the industry also contributed. This summary is based on Privatization of State-Owned Utility Enterprises: the Alaska Case Revisited Thirty Years Later, by Douglas N. Jones and Bradford H. Tuck.
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Alaska Halibut Markets and the Alaska Halibut IFQ Program
Gunnar Knapp
This report provides an introduction to Alaska halibut markets and how they are changing under the Alaska halibut Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) program, which was implemented in 1995. Appendixes to the report provide a variety of halibut market data. Several general conclusions may be drawn about the relationship between future Alaska halibut harvests and fresh and frozen production and wholesale prices: • The higher the Alaska harvest volume, the higher will be Alaska production of both fresh and frozen halibut. • The higher the Alaska harvest volume, the lower will be wholesale prices of both fresh and frozen halibut. The fresh share of halibut production is unlikely to rise to the levels seen in Canada in recent years (more than 90% ). If Alaska were to produce this volume of fresh halibut, fresh wholesale prices would be substantially lower and frozen wholesale prices would be substantially higher--reducing the incentive for processors to supply fresh halibut.
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Modeling Community Economic Impacts of the Alaska Halibut IFQ Program
Gunnar Knapp
In 1995 an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) management plan was implemented for the Alaska halibut fishery (Hippoglossus stenolepis). With annual catches in the 1990s ranging from 34 to 53 million lbs, valued between $60 million and $99 million, the Alaska halibut IFQ program represents by far the largest fishery for which the United States has adopted IFQ fishery management. How can we assess the individual and combined economic effects on Alaska fishing communities of the many different changes resulting from the IFQ program? Economists at the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) have developed a model for use in assessing community economic impacts of changes in fisheries harvests, markets and management. We refer to this model as the Fisheries Community Impact (FCI) model. In this paper, we use this model to look at changes between 1994 and 1995 in the economic impacts of the halibut fishery on five Alaska communities. These five communities-- Kodiak, Homer, Seward, Petersburg and Sitka--accounted for 53% of Alaska halibut landings in 1994 and 57% of total landings in 1995. For this paper, we use direct personal income earned by community residents in fish harvesting, fish processing, and supplying goods and services to the harvesting or processing industries as a measure of community economic impacts. The model may also be used to track employment impacts of fishing, as well as indirect "multiplier" effects on communities of fisheries income and expenditures. Because these effects are roughly (although not exactly) proportional to direct income impacts, for purposes of brevity and simplicity in this paper we describe only direct income impacts.
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