Leisure and the Opportunity Cost of Travel Time in Recreation Demand Analysis: A Re-Examination (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Applied Economics, 2012
Using count data models that account for zero-truncation, overdispersion, and endogenous stratification, we estimate the value of access to recreational parks. The focus is on the empirical estimation of the proportion of the wage rate that best approximates park visitors' opportunity cost of travel time within the cost of their 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. In this case, which deals with a relatively remote recreational site, the relevant opportunity cost of time for most visitors appears to represent a smaller fraction of their wage rate than commonly assumed in previous similar studies.
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...
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.
Journal of Environmental Management, 2008
Using on-site survey data from Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, this paper estimates and compares several truncated count data models of recreation demand. The selected model accounts not only for the truncated and overdispersed nature of the data but also for endogenous stratification due to the oversampling of avid users. Moreover, the model that allows for a flexible specification of the overdispersion parameter dominates on the basis of goodness of fit. The results are used to estimate the users' value of access to the park. r
Alternative Approaches to Incorporating the Opportunity Cost of Time in Recreation Demand Models
The importance of accounting for a respondent’s travel time in recreation demand models is well established. In practice, most analysts use a fixed fraction of the respondent’s wage rate to value travel time. However, other approaches have been suggested in the literature. In this paper revealed and stated preference data on Iowa wetland usage is used to explore various specifications of travel time. It is shown that the choice of a particular specification has a direct impact on welfare estimates as well as the consistency between revealed and stated preference data.
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.
Modeling recreation demand and fees at national parks
Annals of Tourism Research, 2019
The paper develops a model to estimate the effect of entry fees on U.S. national parks visits. Monte Carlo analysis demonstrates that a Poisson-estimated exponential model is preferable to a log-linear model of tourist arrivals. We apply the model to panel data of U.S. national parks tourism to estimate the effect of fees on annual visitation. The results provide evidence that visits to U.S. national parks are inelastic with respect to fees. We use the model to predict the effects of two proposed fee revisions.
Demand and Welfare Effects in Recreational Travel Models: A Bivariate Count Data Approach
2005
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 effects of an increased CO2 tax. In the empirical study, a bivariate zero-inflated Poisson lognormal regression model is
Recreation Demand Choices and Revealed Values of Leisure Time
Economic Inquiry, 2004
Anapproach to jointly estimating an endogenous marginal value of time function and a recreation budget share equation is developed. Thespecifhation requirements for the marginal value of time function, to ensure consistency with the matnlained hypothesis of two binding constraints on choice, are articulated. The estimating model consistent with these requirements that nests several conventional treatments of the marginal value of time is highly significant. The general endogenous marginal value of time model outperforms other approaches and .shows a more complex relationship between the marginal value of time and the individual's wage ihan has been u.sed in previous work. {JEL J22, Q26)
Frequency and time in recreational demand
Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2020
In the standard single-site travel cost model, it is assumed that time spent on-site is exogenous. This assumption results in a willingness to pay (WTP) for time on-site of zero, which may be less realistic for many urban parks that are frequently visited by local residents. We develop a single-site travel cost model where a visitor simultaneously chooses the number of visits and how much time to spend on-site. In this model, the WTP estimate includes the price of the trip and the price of time spent on-site. Next, we develop a two-part hurdle model with non-zero correlation between the number of trips and time spent on-site. We use data gathered in an urban park in Iceland to estimate the model. The estimated WTP values are more than twice as high as the estimates of the standard single-site model.