The Benefits and Costs of Fish Consumption Advisories for Mercury

Paul Jakus, Meghan McGuinness and Alan J. Krupnick

No 10853, Discussion Papers from Resources for the Future

Abstract: Mercury contamination of the Chesapeake Bay is a concern to health authorities in the region. We evaluate the economic and health effects of postulated recreational and commercial fishing advisories for striped bass on the Maryland portion of the bay. Awareness of and response to the advisory is estimated using a meta-analysis of the literature. Three values are estimated: welfare losses to recreational anglers, welfare losses in the commercial striped bass fishery, and health benefits. An estimate of percentage of consumer surplus loss is applied to the value of all fishing days in the bay to estimate recreational welfare loss. Welfare losses to the commercial fishery are estimated based on a model of supply and demand. Health benefits are estimated using estimated exposure and epidemiological relationships, and while potentially large, are highly uncertain. Results also suggest most individuals are below advisory standards ex ante, such that advisories should target high-frequency consumers.

Keywords: Consumer/Household; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 141
Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/10853/files/dp020055.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Benefits and Costs of Fish Consumption Advisories for Mercury (2002)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:rffdps:10853

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.10853

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Resources for the Future Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().