Private management of non-point sources of pollution is an important concept in economics. Regulators are often unable to trace pollutants to their origins and efforts to limit many disaggregated sources of pollution are costly and invasive. Wells and septic systems, common in the rural and suburban United States, represent privately-owned non-point water pollution sources when they fail to protect households and water resources. “Time of Sale or Transfer” (TOST) policies are gaining popularity across the state of Michigan and in other states across the country to require rigorous well and septic system evaluations at the time a house is sold. In cases where threats to public and environmental health are identified, Health Department administrators impose mandatory repair or replacement orders. Without a letter of Health Department approval, a house with a well or septic system cannot be legally transferred. Despite the growing traction of these policies, however, little is known about the effects of TOST program adoption on the housing market. In lieu of empirical evidence, many homeowners and policymakers in Michigan claim that the policies suppress house prices and argue against the instruments. My first essay addresses this empirical gap in the economic literature by estimating the causal impact of policy adoption on house values. I use an event study approach to compare regulated well and septic system homes to a set of neighboring controls just outside the regulation area. Results suggest that there is not a large, statistically significant price decline following policy adoption, with evidence indicating a price penalty no larger than 4 percent.The second essay analyzes the effect of TOST inspection resulting in Health Department required corrective actions. I motivate my empirical strategy with a model of negative TOST information shocks during the contract closing period of a house sale. The data for this essay are inspection-sale pairs constructed by combining county-level inspection records, housing transaction records, and property characteristics. I identify a house price penalty of about 7.5 percent to 10.5 percent after TOST adoption by using a hedonic price model with structural controls, spatial controls, and time fixed effects. These results are robust to a repeat sales model specification as well as an approach controlling for building quality with assessor-assigned grades. Further, there is no evidence of significant heterogeneity based on whether a well or septic system triggers mandatory corrective action, whether the problems identified are high- or low-risk, or which Health Department administers the program. In contrast, a quantile regression shows strong evidence of price impacts led by the low end of the house price spectrum. This suggests that the houses that fail at the highest rates also experience the largest price penalties and belong to homeowners least able to shoulder the costs. Regulators must consider the heterogeneity of these pecuniary effects when regulating externality-generating on-site water systems through the housing market.The third essay studies how to expand aquaculture production int he North Central Region (NCR). U.S. per capita seafood consumption stands at an all-time high due to population and income growth and consumer preference shifts toward healthy proteins. U.S. aquaculture, however, has not kept pace and imports serve most of the U.S. fish market. This study estimates willingness-to-pay (WTP) for several search and credence fish attributes using a hypothetical choice experiment of U.S. fish consumers. Search attributes, like prices, can be readily discerned by consumers before purchase while credence attributes, such as region of production, cannot be easily identified before or after purchase and require labels. Our study varied attributes and levels over three species historically produced in the North Central Region (NCR) but underrepresented in the literature---rainbow trout, yellow perch, and walleye. Using a random utility framework, we identify average price premia of $1.64/lb., $1.97/lb., and $0.84/lb. for an NCR-specific label, wild-caught label, and fresh fillet forms, respectively. We also estimate marginal WTP for trout, yellow perch, and walleye of $19.99/lb., $15.89/lb., and $17.37/lb., respectively. Our findings suggest that NCR aquaculture producers can expand by intensifying trout production while continuing to market yellow perch and walleye in the region. Nationally, an NCR-source label is not valued more than a wild-caught label, implying that overcoming consumers' aversion to farmed fish will require more than marketing fish as products of the NCR.
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