In this paper we present results from a study of recreation demand for southern North Carolina beaches. We combine revealed preference and stated preference data in order to estimate the changes in recreation demand that might occur with beach nourishment and parking improvements necessary to satisfy the requirements for US Army Corps of Engineers cost-share. We illustrate the numerous ways that hypothetical bias in contingent behavior data can lead to increases in the estimates of the economic benefits of recreation and recreation quality improvement. Hypothetical bias affects estimates of the number of trips and slope coefficients. Hypothetical bias does not affect elasticity or consumer surplus per trip estimates. When the product of trips and consumer surplus per trip is taken as an estimate of consumer surplus per season, hypothetical bias leads to upwardly biased seasonal consumer surplus estimates. These results suggest that stated preference recreation demand data, in isolation from revealed preference data, may be suitable for estimation of consumer surplus per trip but not consumer surplus per season.

Recreation demand, Travel cost method, Convergent validity, Revealed preference, Stated preference,

We use telephone survey data on charter boat anglers to estimate demand models to value snapper-grouper and king mackerel bag limits in the North Carolina forhire fishery. The telephone survey presents respondents with hypothetical situations about higher charter fees and lower snapper-grouper and king mackerel bag limits and asks about the number of trips they would take in each situation. Stated preference trip responses are used in a jointly estimated revealed and stated preference demand model. We find that reduction in the snapper-grouper bag limit from 15 fish to 7 fish would reduce the annual aggregate value of charter boat fishing by 29% due to quality effects. The reduction in the snapper-grouper bag limit would reduce the number of charter boat fishing trips by 25% and aggregate economic value an additional 25% million.

No abstract

In this article, we estimate a single trip random utility model for primary purpose and secondary purpose anglers with data from a field survey of charter and headboat passengers in North Carolina. We find that primary and secondary purpose anglers exhibit significantly different behaviour with regards to cost. However, once costs are weighted for secondary purpose anglers, the value of catch is not statistically different across groups.