Cameron, T. A., et al. (1996) “Using actual and contingent behavior data with differing levels of time aggregation to model recreation demand,” Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 21 (1), 130-149.
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Eiswerth, M. E., J. Englin, et al. (2000). “The value of water levels in water-based recreation: A pooled revealed preference/contingent behavior model.” Water Resources Research 36(4): 1079-1086.
In this paper we present estimated recreation values for preventing a decline in water levels at, and even the total loss of, a large western lake that is drying up. We use a Poisson version of the count data travel cost model; however, in addition to and in combination with revealed preference (RP) data, we employ contingent behavior (CB) responses to hypothetical questions on alternative water levels and number of trips. The pooled model used allows for tests of differences between results using RP and CB data. This particular pooled RP/CB approach has not to our knowledge previously been applied to examine the values of alternative water quantities in water- based recreation.
Huszar, E., W. D. Shaw, et al. (1999). “Recreational damages from reservoir storage level changes.” Water Resources Research 35(11): 3489-3494.
Several extreme events affecting recreation have occurred in the Humboldt River Basin of northern Nevada. In 1992, agricultural users completely drained Rye Patch Reservoir killing millions of fish. Additionally, since 1990 gold mines located in the basin have pumped and discharged water into the Humboldt River; in recent years, discharges have equaled approximately 60% of the river's annual flow. In this paper we develop and estimate a joint model of fish catch and recreation demand, both of which depend on water levels, to assess the losses and gains from water level changes tied to events in the basin.
Wilson, M. A. and S. R. Carpenter (1999). “Economic valuation of freshwater ecosystem services in the United States: 1971-1997.” Ecological Applications 9(3): 772-783.
The purpose of this paper is to provide ecologists and resource managers with a sense of where the economic science of ecosystem valuation has come from and where it might go in the future. To accomplish this, the paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of peer-reviewed economic data on surface freshwater ecosystems in the United States and examines major accomplishments and gaps in the literature. Economic value has been assigned to nonmarket goods and services provided by surface freshwater systems in the United States by 30 published, refereed articles in the scientific literature from 1971 to 1997. These studies have used variations of three approaches for a quantitative assessment of economic value: travel cost methods, hedonic pricing methods, and contingent valuation methods. To determine the economic value of nonmarket ecosystem goods and services, each method focuses on a different aspect of social benefit associated with lakes, streams, rivers, and wetlands. Valuation methodologies work from different underlying assumptions while possessing unique limitations and uncertainties. Dollar benefit estimates derived for nonmarket freshwater ecosystem goods and services from these studies tend to be specific to a particular method, ecosystem, and socioeconomic circumstance. Creative interdisciplinary research is needed on the quantitative measurement of surface freshwater ecosystem goods and service values, the relation of these values to key limnological variates, and communication of limnological insights to the public and social scientists in ways that facilitate and improve future management acid research.
Feather, P. and W. D. Shaw (1999). “Estimating the cost of leisure time for recreation demand models.” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 38(1): 49-65.
In this paper, we propose a method of determining the opportunity cost of leisure time with an empirical recreation demand application. Typically, the opportunity cost of leisure time is assumed to be some fraction of the wage rate. This practice has limitations. First, it assumes that individuals can trade time for money at their wage. Second, it offers no guidance about how to value the time of an individual who is not in the labor force. This paper proposes a method of determining this cost that does not suffer from these drawbacks. An empirical example is provided which demonstrates the proposed approach and contrasts it with commonly applied approaches. (C) 1999 Academic Press.
Fadali, E., and W. D. Shaw (1998) “Can recreation values for a lake constitute a market for banked agricultural water?,” Contemporary Economic Policy, 16 (4), 433-441.
This paper presents estimates of the recreational use value to prevent the loss of a western lake threatened by diversions of upstream waters that supply it. The recreation demand model used to estimate recreation-related values is the popular repeated nested multinomial legit model. The model is specified to allow an individual to choose when to visit various sites during the season, because site choice is likely to be influenced by water levels that change over the course of the season. The values are compared to agricultural values in order to assess whether the potential recreation demand side of a market for a water bank exists. (JEL C25, D61, Q25).
Vossler, C. A., J. Espey, and W. D. Shaw (1998) “Trick or treat? An offer to obtain metered water,” Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 34 (5), 1213-1220.
In this paper we examine the possible reasons why individuals who live in homes facing a flat monthly rate for water accept or reject an offer to have water metering devices installed at no cost to them. A legit model is used to model the discrete choice of acceptance. Since the demand for metering is directly tied to water demand, we estimate demand models for unmetered households in the Reno/Sparks metropolitan area using contingent data obtained by presenting households with hypothetical prices they might encounter under a metering system. Conditional legit and demand models are then used to examine the potential for metering to promote water conservation in the arid Reno/Sparks, Nevada metropolitan area.
Nestor, D. V. (1998) “Policy evaluation with combined actual and contingent response data,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 80 (2), 264-276.
The City of Marietta, Georgia, experimentally switched from flat fee financing to volume-based pricing for its trash services in January 1994. Both before and during the experiment, detailed data on individuals' observed responses to the actual introduction and contingent behavioral responses to a hypothetical introduction of volume-based pricing were collected. This study applies these data, and investigates the methodology of collecting contingent behavior data and their use in policy analysis. In particular, this study empirically evaluates the effect of experience with the policy on responses to contingent behavior questions, and tests for potential bias in the contingent behavior data.
Shaw, W. D. (1996) “Problems with estimating the economic impacts of averting climate change: A look at water resources,” Water Resources Research, 32 (7), 2251-2257.
Averting climate change may have substantial water-resource- related benefits to agricultural, industrial, recreational, and residential household users. Economic benefits are usually estimated assuming that individuals face no uncertainty in decision making, but the benefits from averting climate change will accrue primarily to individuals in the future. Predicting future; benefits is usually done using ex ante economic methods, and propogating uncertainty or specifiying the appropriate distributions in estimating the magnitude of the benefits is a problem. After describing the key issues relating climate change and water resources, the paper explains why economic theory fails to demonstrate which method appears more reasonable than the other. Alternatively, we might attempt to estimate the benefits from averting climate change using a benefits analysis of similar events that have already occurred. Many suggestions for conducting a benefits transfer, including one in the area of water-based recreation, are offered as ways to glean something about possible water-resource-related benefits from averting climate change.