Recreation benefits of water quality improvement in selected lakes in Minnesota

Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:5435301

Huang, C H

In this estimate of the recreational benefits of water quality improvement a new approach, called the shadow hedonic price method is presented. It is demonstrated that this method is theoretically superior to other methodologies such as the pooled-data approach and the random-coefficient method, because it does not rely on the assumption of weak complementarity. In order to apply the shadow hedonic price method, the travel cost method is used to estimate the recreational benefits captured by the recreationists. To acquire the benefit estimate as accurately as possible, four theoretical issues pertaining to the travel cost method are addressed. These include (1) the bias from ignoring substitute sites, (2) the bias from excess demand, (3) the bias from variable cost, and (4) the values of travel time and on-site time. It is argued in this thesis that the bias from ignoring substitute sites may be downward as well as upward, and can be reduced by using individual observations rather than zonal averages. It is shown that in measuring the travel cost variable, variable cost, such as out-of-pocket expenditures at the recreation site and on-site time cost, should be excluded, when the number of trips is used as a dependent variable; otherwise, the travel cost method will overestimate the true benefits.

• Research Organization: Minnesota Univ., Minneapolis (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5435301
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
290200 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Economics & Sociology
290300* -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety
520200 -- Environment
Aquatic-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
FEDERAL REGION V
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
LAKES
MINNESOTA
NORTH AMERICA
RECREATIONAL AREAS
SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS
SURFACE WATERS
USA
WATER QUALITY