[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rep/wpaper/2009-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Domestication of Wildlife Lead to Conservation? The Economics of Tiger Farming in China

Author

Listed:
  • Brant Abbott
  • G. Cornelis van Kooten
Abstract
Tigers are a threatened species that might soon disappear in the wild. Not only are tigers threatened by deteriorating and declining habitat, but poachers continue to kill tigers for traditional medicine, decoration pieces and so on. Although international trade in tiger products has been banned since 1987 and domestic trade within China since 1993, tigers continue to be poached and Chinese entrepreneurs have established tiger farms in anticipation of their demise. While China desires to permit sale of tiger products from captive-bred tigers, this is opposed on the grounds that it likely encourages illegal killing. Instead, wildlife conservationists lobby for more spending on anti-poaching and trade-ban enforcement. In this study, a mathematical bioeconomic model is used to investigate the issue. Simulation results indicate that, unless range states are characterized by institutions (rule of law, low corruption) similar to those found in the richest countries, reliance on enforcement alone is insufficient to guarantee survival of wild tigers. Likewise, even though conservation payments could protect wild tigers, the inability to enforce contracts militates against this. Our model indicates that wild tigers can be protected by permitting sale of products from tiger farms, although this likely requires the granting of an exclusive license to sellers. Finally, it is possible to tradeoff enforcement effort and sale of products from captive-bred animals, but such tradeoffs are worsened by deteriorating tiger habitat.

Suggested Citation

  • Brant Abbott & G. Cornelis van Kooten, 2008. "Can Domestication of Wildlife Lead to Conservation? The Economics of Tiger Farming in China," Working Papers 2009-01, University of Victoria, Department of Economics, Resource Economics and Policy Analysis Research Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:rep:wpaper:2009-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.uvic.ca/~repa/publications/REPA%20working%20papers/WorkingPaper2009-01.pdf
    File Function: Final version, 2009
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eiswerth, Mark E. & van Kooten, G. Cornelis, 2009. "The ghost of extinction: Preservation values and minimum viable population in wildlife models," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 2129-2136, May.
    2. Fischer, Carolyn, 2004. "The complex interactions of markets for endangered species products," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 926-953, September.
    3. Nirvikar Singh & Xavier Vives, 1984. "Price and Quantity Competition in a Differentiated Duopoly," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 546-554, Winter.
    4. Heltberg, Rasmus, 2001. "Impact of the ivory trade ban on poaching incentives: a numerical example," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 189-195, February.
    5. Damania, Richard & Bulte, Erwin H., 2007. "The economics of wildlife farming and endangered species conservation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3-4), pages 461-472, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Solomon Hsiang & Nitin Sekar, 2016. "Does Legalization Reduce Black Market Activity? Evidence from a Global Ivory Experiment and Elephant Poaching Data," NBER Working Papers 22314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alan Collins & Caroline Cox & Juniours Marire, 2020. "On the judicial annulment of the ‘domestic’ trade moratorium in South African rhinoceros horn: a law and economics perspective," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 361-372, June.
    3. G. Cornelis van Kooten & Tim Bogle & Frans P. de Vries, 2012. "Rent Seeking and the Smoke and Mirrors Game in the Creation of Forest Sector Carbon Credits: An Example from British Columbia," Working Papers 2012-06, University of Victoria, Department of Economics, Resource Economics and Policy Analysis Research Group.
    4. Pavleska, Marija & Kerr, William A., 2020. "Importer's risk, smuggling and the role of incentives in the management of animal diseases," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    5. Linlin Li & Zhigang Jiang, 2014. "International Trade of CITES Listed Bird Species in China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(2), pages 1-8, February.
    6. Lu Feng & Qiyi Cai & Yang Bai & Wenjie Liao, 2021. "China’s Wildlife Management Policy Framework: Preferences, Coordination and Optimization," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, August.
    7. Zareena Begum. I & Amanat K. Gill, 2014. "Analyzing the Pathway to Improve Tiger Conservation in India," Working Papers 2014-090, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sam M Ferreira & Judith M Botha & Megan C Emmett, 2012. "Anthropogenic Influences on Conservation Values of White Rhinoceros," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-14, September.
    2. Chen, Frederick, 2017. "The Economics of Synthetic Rhino Horns," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 180-189.
    3. Feichtinger, Gustav & Lambertini, Luca & Leitmann, George & Wrzaczek, Stefan, 2022. "Managing the tragedy of commons and polluting emissions: A unified view," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 303(1), pages 487-499.
    4. Zareena Begum. I & Amanat K. Gill, 2014. "Analyzing the Pathway to Improve Tiger Conservation in India," Working Papers 2014-090, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    5. Balistreri, Edward J. & Worley, Christopher M., 2009. "Mercury: The good, the bad, and the export ban," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 195-204, December.
    6. Heid, Benedikt & Márquez-Ramos, Laura, 2023. "International environmental agreements and imperfect enforcement: Evidence from CITES," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    7. Chen, Frederick & ’t Sas-Rolfes, Michael, 2021. "Theoretical analysis of a simple permit system for selling synthetic wildlife goods," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    8. Ferrier, Peyton Michael, 2009. "The Economics of Agricultural and Wildlife Smuggling," Economic Research Report 55951, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    9. Krzysztof Kosiec, 2016. "Liberalisation of International Trade – The Case of Asymmetric Countries," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 8(3), pages 143-160, September.
    10. Markus Reisinger & Ludwig Ressner, 2006. "The Choice of Prices vs. Quantities under Uncertainty," Working Papers 007, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    11. Emmanuel Petrakis & Panagiotis Skartados, 2022. "Vertical Opportunism, Bargaining, and Share-Based Agreements," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 60(4), pages 549-565, June.
    12. Lambertini, Luca, 1997. "Prisoners' Dilemma in Duopoly (Super)Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 181-191, November.
    13. Aseem Kaul & Jiao Luo, 2018. "An economic case for CSR: The comparative efficiency of for‐profit firms in meeting consumer demand for social goods," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1650-1677, June.
    14. Bernhofen, Daniel M. & Bernhofen, Laura T., 1999. "On the likelihood of a prisoners' dilemma in a differentiated duopoly," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 291-294, September.
    15. Domenico Buccella & Luciano Fanti, 2022. "Downstream competition and profits under different input price bargaining structures," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 136(3), pages 251-268, August.
    16. Yuval Heller & Eyal Winter, 2020. "Biased-Belief Equilibrium," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 1-40, May.
    17. Alberto Galasso & Mihkel Tombak, 2014. "Switching to Green: The Timing of Socially Responsible Innovation," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 669-691, September.
    18. Amanda De Pirro & Renaud Foucart, 2022. "Of Shrimp and Men," Working Papers 352589140, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    19. Langenmayr, Dominika & Haufler, Andreas & Bauer, Christian J., 2015. "Should tax policy favor high- or low-productivity firms?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 18-34.
    20. Jack (Peiyao) Ma & Andrea Mantovani & Carlo Reggiani & Annette Broocks & Néstor Duch-Brown, 2024. "The Price Effects of Prohibiting Price Parity Clauses: Evidence from International Hotel Groups," Economics Series Working Papers 1043, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    endangered species; extinction; wildlife farming and bioeconomics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • Q27 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Issues in International Trade
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rep:wpaper:2009-01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: G.C. van Kooten (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/devicca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.