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

regulates interstate in nursery products, often has two sub-lists: an A-list (zero tolerance) and a B-
list for weeds posing a potential danger but whose importation is not necessarily prohibited.

Unlike the federal NXW and NXWS lists, there exists large cross-state differences in the
size and composition of these lists. For instance, figure 1a shows the number of weed species in
state NXWS lists (excluding Alaska and Hawaii), where Colorado and New York have,
respectively, the most and least number of weeds. Figure 1b identifies how many of the weed
species in California’s NXWS list are also listed in other 47 contiguous states. Not surprisingly,
a state’s number of common weeds with that of California decline as we move from west to east.

In this study we identify and investigate the sources of cross-state differences in NXW
and NXWS lists. Specifically, we characterize the basis for state weed regulations by identifying
stakeholders, and their costs and benefits.¹ Then, we ask why NXWS and NXW lists diverge
from one state to another. To answer this question, we develop a political and ecological
economy model of IS regulation. In our inter-disciplinary approach, we model the supply and
demand for IS protection and the resulting equilibrium, which determines the size and
composition of NXWS and NXW lists. Three economic interest groups are considered for each
state: consumers, seed producers and nursery growers, and commodity producers. For
consumers, increasing IS protection increases the price of the associated agricultural product by
reducing its external supply; but it may also protect the ecosystem and to that extent provide
positive marginal utility. Seed producers or nursery growers gain from higher prices for their
products and the increased agronomic-protection embodied in the IS protection. Like
consumers, commodity producers face a tradeoff between increased input prices (e.g., seed price)
but gain from reduced weed intrusions into their state. We derive the social planner’s problem as
¹ For a sample of studies on risk assessment and management of weeds, and broader invasive species, see Eiswerth
and Van Kooten (2002), Settle and Shogren (2002), National research Council (2002), Lehtonen (2001), Panetta et
al. (2001), Rejmanek (2001, 1999) and Stocker (2001).

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