MEASURING THE IMPACTS OF FEDERAL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ON COASTAL LAND USE AND DEVELOPMENT: AN EVALUATION OF THE U.S. COASTAL BARRIER RESOURCES ACT

Despite comprising less than 10 percent of total land area in the U.S., nearly 40 percent of the population lives in a county directly on the coast (Crossett et al., 2013). While people have long been attracted to the coast for its natural beauty and economic vibrancy, government policy also plays a major role in shaping development patterns. Federal provision of subsidized flood insurance and post-disaster assistance, for example, has created a system in which the U.S. government subsidizes coastal development along with the cost of recovery following a disaster event. In response, Congress enacted the Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) in 1982, removing federal financial assistance for infrastructure (e.g., roads, bridges, water/sewer, risk reduction measures), post-disaster assistance, and subsidized flood insurance under the National Flood Insurance Program, within designated coastal barriers (called “CBRA units”). The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the impacts of CBRA on land use and development. The first paper measures the causal effect of CBRA on development, finding that CBRA has significantly slowed development by more than 75 percent compared to neighboring lands outside CBRA. The second paper uses a series of case studies to delve into the processes that led to divergent outcomes within CBRA, finding that development often occurred when politically powerful landowners were able to galvanize state and local financial support in lieu of federal spending. Finally, the third paper uses a mixed methods approach to evaluate how CBRA has influenced land conservation, finding that land in CBRA is more likely to have been conserved since its enactment and that its restrictions have helped make these lands higher conservation priorities. Taken together, this dissertation demonstrates that subsidy removal may be an effective land management strategy in other sensitive and hazardous areas.