Rent-Seeking in Noxious Weed Regulations: Evidence from US States

He Min
Munisamy Gopinath*
Steven T. Buccola
Peter B. McEvoy

Abstract: Many non-native insect, disease, and weed pests of food, fiber, and nursery crops pose
threats to the U.S. environment, agricultural production, and exports. In this study we focus on
regulations controlling the spread of noxious weeds, especially the regulatory differences among
US states and investigate the determinants of such regulations. With a simple game-theoretic
framework, we derive cross-state regulatory congruence as a function of ecological and
agronomic characteristics and stakeholder lobbying through political contributions. Empirical
results suggest ecological and agronomic dissimilarities drive large cross-state differences in
noxious weed regulation across states. However, evidence of stakeholder interests in shaping
these regulations is found to be statistically significant. In particular, the seed industry appears
to favor more uniform regulations among US states.

Key Words: Invasive Species, Political Economy, Weed Regulation

JEL Classification: Q5, H7

Min is a Graduate Student, Gopinath an Associate Professor and Buccola a Professor in the
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and McEvoy is a Professor in the
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon.

*Corresponding author (E-mail: [email protected], Ph: 541-737-1402, Fax: 541-737-
2563).

Financial support for the research was provided by a Cooperative Agreement with the Economic
Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Program of Research on the
Economics of Invasive Species Management. The authors thank Robbin Shoemaker for his
valuable suggestions on the research project.

More intriguing information

1. Population ageing, taxation, pensions and health costs, CHERE Working Paper 2007/10
2. Biologically inspired distributed machine cognition: a new formal approach to hyperparallel computation
3. Pursuit of Competitive Advantages for Entrepreneurship: Development of Enterprise as a Learning Organization. International and Russian Experience
4. Modelling Transport in an Interregional General Equilibrium Model with Externalities
5. Protocol for Past BP: a randomised controlled trial of different blood pressure targets for people with a history of stroke of transient ischaemic attack (TIA) in primary care
6. Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between the Level of Infrastructure and Capital Inflows
7. The name is absent
8. Estimating the Economic Value of Specific Characteristics Associated with Angus Bulls Sold at Auction
9. Forecasting Financial Crises and Contagion in Asia using Dynamic Factor Analysis
10. The name is absent