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Item Does wilderness matter? : an examination of the political causes and economic consequences of wilderness designation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 2013) Regan, Shawn Edward; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Randal R. Rucker.;This thesis improves upon previous cross-sectional analyses of the economic effects of wilderness designation in two important ways. First, a political economy analysis of wilderness selection is developed using data from a comprehensive inventory of all potential wilderness areas managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Second, the economic consequences of wilderness designation are examined using a novel county-level panel data set of western U.S. counties from 1969 to 2010. The Forest Service and Congress are found to act as arbitrators of competing interest groups by designating areas with high levels of wilderness attributes but low development potential. Wilderness designations are found to not have a significant effect on levels of per capita income, population, employment, or average wage per job. These finding are robust to a broad range of specifications. The results suggest that the Forest Service and Congress have made wilderness selection decisions that do not impose significant costs on local economies.Item The impact on wages of wilderness designation in Montana(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Agriculture, 1992) Kerr, Leslie, 1967-; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Terry Anderson.The wilderness debate has largely been polarized into two main factions: the environmentalists, including groups such as the Montana Wilderness Society, which favors land preservation, and industrial groups, such as the Montana Wood Products Association, which favors extractive activities on public land. The debate includes both philosophical and economic considerations. The philosophical debate centers around the ethically correct use of public land, while the economic debate focuses on which type of land use provides the highest level of economic well-being to the citizens in adjacent areas. Historically, both sides have claimed that their particular land-use alternative provides the highest level of economic well-being, while neither side has convincing evidence to support its claim. One of the more important aspects of the economic debate has focused on jobs and which alternative provides more of them. An additional concern is how each alternative affects the wage rate in adjacent areas. The primary goal of this investigation is to estimate the effect, if any, of wilderness designation on the wages in areas adjacent to wilderness.