@article{Lewis:20748,
      recid = {20748},
      author = {Lewis, David A. and Hunt, Gary L. and Plantinga, Andrew  J.},
      title = {PUBLIC CONSERVATION LAND AND EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN THE  NORTHERN FOREST REGION},
      address = {2001},
      number = {374-2016-19797},
      series = {Selected Papers},
      pages = {41},
      year = {2001},
      abstract = {As with many environmental issues, debates about  increasing public conservation lands in the Northern Forest  region frequently center on a perceived tradeoff between  jobs and the environment.  In particular, opponents of  conservation lands often argue that employment will decline  significantly when land is diverted from commodity-oriented  uses such as wood products production.  To evaluate this  claim, we estimate a model of simultaneous employment and  net migration growth using data on the 92 non-metropolitan  counties comprising the region.  Growth in employment and  net migration are measured over the period 1990 to 1997 and  the set of exogenous variables includes the 1990 share of  the county land base in public conservation uses.  We find  that net migration rates were systematically higher in  counties with more conservation lands, but the effects are  relatively small.  Public conservation lands were found to  have no systematic effect on employment growth over the  1990 to 1997 period.  Two extensions are considered.  We  examine the separate effects of preservationist and  multiple-use lands.  We also identify a "natural  experiment" involving changes in national forest management  that allows us to estimate the effects of diverting private  forestland to public conservation uses.  Our central  conclusions are that existing public conservation lands  have a positive, but small, effect on employment and  migration in the Northern Forest region and that, over the  range of our data, employment and migration are unlikely to  be affected by timber harvest reductions resulting from the  establishment of new conservation lands.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/20748},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.20748},
}