Demand and Welfare Effects in Recreational Travel Models: A Bivariate Count Data Approach (original) (raw)
Related papers
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2012
In this paper we present a non-linear demand system for households' joint choice of number of trips and days to spend at a destination. The approach, which facilitates welfare analysis of exogenous policy and price changes, is used empirically to study the e¤ects of an increased CO 2 tax. In the empirical study, a bivariate zero-in ‡ated Poisson lognormal regression model is introduced in order to accommodate the large number of zeroes in the sample. The welfare analysis reveals that the equivalent variation (EV) measure, for the count data demand system, can be seen as an upper bound for the households welfare loss. Approximating the welfare loss by the change in consumer surplus, accounting for the positive e¤ect from longer stays, imposes a lower bound on the households welfare loss. From a distributional point of view, the results reveal that the CO 2 tax reform is regressive, in the sense that low income households carry a larger part of the tax burden.
Environmental and Resource Economics, 1996
This paper proposes contingent behavior survey questions as a valuable supplement to observed data in travel cost models of non-market demand for recreational resources. A set of observed and contingent behavior results for each survey respondent allows the researcher to control for individual heterogeneity by taking advantage of panel data methods when exploring the nature of respondent demands. The contingent scenarios also provide opportunities to (a) test for differences between observed and contingent preferences and/or (b) assess likely demands under conditions beyond the domain of observed variation in costs or resource attributes. Most importantly, contingent scenarios allow the researcher to impose exogenously varying travel costs. Exogenous imposition of travel costs together with panel methods reduces the omitted variables bias that plagues observed-data travel cost models of recreational demand. Using a convemence sample of data for illustrative purposes, we show how to estimate the demand for recreational angling by combining observed and contingent behavior data. We begin with simple naive pooled Poisson models and progress to more theoretically appropriate fixed effects panel Poisson specifications.
A TRAVEL COST ESTIMATION OF CONSUMER SURPLUS IN RECREATIONAL VISITS: A COUNT MODEL APPROACH
Assam Economic Journal , 2022
Recreational services are demanded because they generate benefits. The recreational benefits connected with a destination can be valued based on visitor preferences, which can aid in the formulation of an appropriate Natural Resource Management policy. Environmental and natural resource management studies often attempt to quantify the welfare shift caused by a policy change. In general, welfare is defined as the area under the demand curve; and accordingly, by estimating the demand curve, consumer surplus is obtained, which illustrates the welfare changes connected with an environmental policy change. But unfortunately, conventional markets fail to determine the recreational demand preferences for lack of a proper price mechanism. So the only choice is a non-market method. The Travel Cost Method (TCM) is a well-documented demand based method in environmental literature for measuring such non-marketed recreational benefits. This study attempts to estimate the consumer surplus, in the recreational demand for the Dibru Saikhowa National Park (DSNP), Assam with the help of TCM. In the process, it also seeks to answer the question of whether the existing user charges of DSNP reflect the true recreational demand assigned to the park by its visitors. The findings of the study are expected to be useful for different stakeholders associated with the park's conservation in general and its recreational services in particular, including policy makers.
Truncation and Endogenous Stratification in Various Count Data Models for Recreation Demand Analysis
Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics
This paper extends the truncated and endogenously stratified Poisson and negative binomial models to three alternative discrete distributions, namely the generalized Poisson, geometric, and Borel distributions. Our primary intention here is to demonstrate how improper treatment of the data generates divergent outcomes by applying those distributions to recreation trip data gathered from surveys of visitors to an indigenous horse park in Japan. Our empirical application shows that failure to account for overdispersion, truncation, and endogenous stratification leads to substantial changes in parameter estimates and their standard errors. The parameter on the travel cost tends to be underestimated in absolute value in the standard setups. This results in serious overestimation of the economic benefit that the recreation site offers to society. Even when the endogenous stratification is incorporated, ignoring overdispersion causes the per capita per trip consumer's surplus to be ov...
Augmenting travel cost models with contingent behavior data
Environmental & Resource Economics, 1996
This paper proposes contingent behavior survey questions as a valuable supplement to observed data in travel cost models of non-market demand for recreational resources. A set of observed and contingent behavior results for each survey respondent allows the researcher to control for individual heterogeneity by taking advantage of panel data methods when exploring the nature of respondent demands. The contingent scenarios also provide opportunities to (a) test for differences between observed and contingent preferences and/or (b) assess likely demands under conditions beyond the domain of observed variation in costs or resource attributes. Most importantly, contingent scenarios allow the researcher to impose exogenously varying travel costs.
Nonparametric and Semi-Nonparametric Recreational Demand Analysis
American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2000
This paper addresses issues of specification testing for the travel cost method (TCM). Two nonparametric approaches to TCM analysis are presented. In addition, semi-nonparametric count models for TCM are developed. A numerical illustration is provided in which the three methods are applied to an actual TCM data set on waterfowl hunting and the results compared to those from a parametric analysis.
2000
An important consideration in the development of regulations and policies that administer natural resources in an area is the value of the non-market activities supported by those lands. Little attention has been paid to the aggregate value of large geographic areas. This analysis builds a utility-theoretic price index and utilizes this index to estimate an aggregate Poisson demand to value backcountry recreational hiking opportunities in northern California.
Leisure and the Opportunity Cost of Travel Time in Recreation Demand Analysis: A Re-Examination
2008
Using count data models that account for zero-truncation, overdispersion, and endogenous stratification, this paper estimates the value of access to recreational parks. The focus is on the valuation of the opportunity cost of travel time within the cost of the trip and its effects on estimated consumer surplus. The fraction of hourly earnings that corresponds to the opportunity cost of travel time is endogenously estimated as a function of visitor characteristics, rather than fixed exogenously. We find that the relevant opportunity cost of time for most visitors represents a smaller fraction of their wage rate than commonly assumed previously.
Environmental Management, 2009
One of the basic assumptions of the travel cost method for recreational demand analysis is that the travel cost is always incurred for a single purpose recreational trip. Several studies have skirted around the issue with simplifying assumptions and dropping observations considered as non-conventional holiday-makers or as non-traditional visitors from the sample. The effect of such simplifications on the benefit estimates remains conjectural. Given the remoteness of notable recreational parks, multi-destination or multi-purpose trips are not uncommon. This paper examines the consequences of allocating travel costs to a recreational site when some trips were taken for purposes other than recreation and/or included visits to other recreational sites. Using a multi-purpose weighting approach on data from Gros Morne National Park, Canada, we conclude that a proper correction for multi-destination or multi-purpose trip is more of what is needed to avoid potential biases in the estimated effects of the price (travel-cost) variable and of the income variable in the trip generation equation.
The Demand of Car Rentals: a Microeconometric Approach with Count Models and Survey Data
Review of Economic Analysis, 2013
The Demand of Car Rentals: a Microeconometric Approach with Count Models and Survey Data The purpose of this study is to analyze the demand side of the tourist market in a small island economy, the Autonomous Region of the Azores, a Portuguese region experienced a rapid growth in the tourism sector in the last decade. Azorean islands are, normally, a "fly-and-drive" destination given the high frequency of car rentals by the tourists. It is well known that the excessive use of cars can lead to negative externalities such as pollution and the degradation of roads. Considering the growing number of tourist in the Azores and ecological fragility that is typical for small islands, it is crucially important to investigate the extent of these negative externalities. This phenomenon is very important in terms of policy-making on the management of tourism in small island economies as well as in the global environmental context from the perspectives of effective "eco-taxes", used as instruments for internalizing negative externalities and enhancing environmental protection. To this end, the demand function of car rentals is analyzed with the use of the family of count models and the unique micro-level survey data, conducted on a large number of tourists visited the region. Based on the price elasticity of demand for care rentals, we then suggest desired tax rates for internalizing the congestion costs.