Research

I am an environmental and resource economist who studies how conservation policies work in practice. Policies to protect nature act through people: fishers, ranchers, hunters, even drivers. Whether those policies succeed depends on how people respond to the incentives they create. My research measures those responses and uses them to design better conservation policy.

My work spans oceans, land, and freshwater. In the ocean, I study marine protected areas and the global push to protect 30% of the planet by 2030. I ask whether protection benefits fisheries, where displaced fishing goes, and whether fishing bans are respected. On land and in freshwater, I study the costs and benefits of predator recovery, the value of wildlife and recreational fisheries, the economic effects of invasive species, and how conservation can be paid for.

I combine econometrics and machine learning with new sources of data, especially satellite imagery and vessel tracking, to observe human activity at scales that were previously out of reach.

Publications

12. Raynor, J. and T. Lohrer. (2026). “Satellite-based fishing fleet tracking: A new foundation for fisheries science and management.” Fish and Fisheries 0: 1-17. [Full-text]

11. Sagar, H.S.S.C., J. Raynor, F.A. Edwards, F.J. Sanderson, S. Jones, D.W. Yu, A. Bush, M.E. Persche, T. Bodasing, M.E. Taire, B. Gottesman, M.A. Feika, L. Nyallay, Z. Buřivalová. (2026). “Carbon finance initiatives can provide biodiversity benefits.” Conservation Science and Practice 8(4): e70254. [Full-text]

10. Raynor, J., S. Orofino, C. Costello, G. McDonald, J. Mayorga, and E. Sala (2025). “Little-to-no industrial fishing occurs in fully and highly protected marine areas.” Science 389: 392-395. [Full-text]

→ Featured on the cover of Science (July 2025)

9. Lewis, L., J. Raynor, and L. Richardson (2024). “The nature of the beast: wildlife valuation from the iconic to the ordinary.” Annual Review of Resource Economics 16: 11.1-11.20. [Full-text]

8. G. McDonald, J. Bone, C. Costello, G. Englander, J. Raynor (2024). “Global expansion of marine protected areas and the redistribution of fishing effort.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121(29): e2400592121. [Full-text]

7. Paolo, F., D. Kroodsma, J. Raynor, T. Hochberg, P. Davis, J. Cleary, L. Marsaglia, S. Orofino, C. Thomas, and P. Halpin. “Satellite mapping reveals extensive industrial activity at sea.” Nature 625: 85–91. [Full-text]

6. Medoff, S., J. Lynham, and J. Raynor (2022). “Spillover benefits from the world’s largest fully protected MPA.” Science 20(378): 313-316. [Full-text]

5. Raynor, J., C. Grainger, and D. Parker (2021). “Wolves make roadways safer, generating large economic returns to predator conservation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (22):e2023251118. [Full-text; Supplementary Information]

4. Lynham, J., A. Nikolaev, J. Raynor, T. Vilela, J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez (2021). “Reply to ‘Catch rate composition affects assessment of protected area impacts’.” Nature Communications 12(1):1590. [Full-text]

3. Siders Z.A., N.D. Ducharme-Barth, F. Carvalho, D. Kobayashi, S. Martin, J. Raynor, T.T. Jones, and R.N.M. Ahrens. 2020. “Ensemble Random Forests as a tool for modeling rare occurrences.” Endangered Species Research 43:183-197. [Full-text]

2. Raynor, J. and D. Phaneuf. 2020. “Can Native Species Compete with Valuable Exotics? Valuing Ecological Changes in the Lake Michigan Recreational Fishery.” Journal of Great Lakes Research 46(3): 643-655. [Full-text by request]

1. Lynham, J., A. Nikolaev, J. Raynor, T. Vilela, J.C. Villaseñor-Derbez. 2020. “Impact of two of the world’s largest protected areas on longline fishery catch rates.” Nature Communications 11(1):979. [Full-text]

Last updated: July 31, 2026