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Browsing by Author "Bayham, Jude, committee member"

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    Camping in clearcuts: the impacts of timber harvesting on USFS campground utilization
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Wallace, Kelly, author; Suter, Jordan, advisor; Bayham, Jude, committee member; McCollum, Dan, committee member; Tulanowski, Elizabeth, committee member
    The United States Forest Service (USFS) governs its lands under multiple-use management, where land is managed for more than one purpose or objective to achieve the greatest possible combination of public benefits. Some objectives are compatible, while others are not (Clawson, 1974; Rose and Chapman, 2003; USFS, 2021c). This research seeks to inform the site location of future timber harvests relative to existing campgrounds by analyzing how past and current harvests near campgrounds have influenced campground utilization. Beyond this, the research also informs the expected impacts of timber harvesting and recreation on local economies. Previous economic research related to timber harvesting's impact on nearby recreation has been carried out at a smaller spatial scale or outside the U.S., and none have focused on campgrounds specifically (Eggers et al., 2018; Harshaw and Sheppard, 2013). Past studies find that intensive forest management changes the degree of naturalness of a forest and generally negatively impacts recreation. The research we conduct builds on these studies to apply a temporally and spatially explicit model to analyze harvesting's impact on campground utilization on USFS land across the Western U.S. We find that timber harvests significantly decrease reservations during the year of harvest. Furthermore, the selection method of harvest has the most negative impact, likely due to being the most common harvesting method both overall and near campgrounds. There are regional differences in campground demand during harvesting. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that campground reservations continue to be impacted one year after a harvest takes place. The loss in campground utilization from the reduction in reservations during harvest years can be expected to have negative impacts on nearby tourism-dependent economies.
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    Exploring the overall, distributional and resiliency implications of investments in rural outdoor tourism: the case of Fishers Peak State Park
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Schuck, Skyler, author; Thilmany, Dawn, advisor; Weiler, Stephan, committee member; Hill, Rebecca, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member
    The recently christened Fishers Peak State Park offers great potential to give a much-needed boost to the economy of Las Animas County, specifically the town of Trinidad. State parks tend to draw tourism and may even improve the quality of life for current citizens or potential new workforce entrants (a benefit to employers), representing direct and spillover economic and societal benefits to the region. Yet, not all in the region may experience the same benefits. This paper seeks to estimate the overall and distributional income effect of the new state park through traditional empirical tourism expenditure modeling and input-output model analysis, with particular attention to and consideration for how different development approaches may affect outcomes. The framing and applied case study of this work is intended to serve as a toolkit for rural communities seeking to more holistically evaluate infrastructure development options to help them maximize the strength of key economic indicators that are keystones for economic resiliency. We seek to apply the same tourism and hospitality dependency methodology from Watson & Deller (2022) to assess resiliency in the region. But, to contribute to more nuanced understanding of the region's potential impacts, the analysis will apply a more focused lens by using refined location quotients for employment concentrations and data from the restricted QCEW, and by using both the Great Recession (2007-2009) and COVID-19 Pandemic (2019-2021) as shocks.
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    Exploring the use of credit/debit card transaction data in estimating national park visitor spending: a Mount Rushmore case study
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Stockmoe, Evan, author; Burkhardt, Jesse, advisor; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Komarek, Tim, committee member
    Visitor spending refers to trip-related expenditures made by tourists. Estimates of visitor spending are needed for national park economic contribution studies, and are an essential component in evaluating tourism-related economic activity [Thomas et al., 2019, Wilton and Nickerson, 2006]. Traditional methods for estimating visitor spending rely on visitor surveys, which are costly and subject to multiple forms of survey bias [Stynes and White, 2006, Sinclair et al., 2023, Wilton and Nickerson, 2006]. Using Mount Rushmore National Memorial as a case study, I explore the use of granular credit and debit card transaction data to estimate visitor spending without the need for survey data. I use Safegraph Spend as the source of credit and debit card transaction data. I gather transaction data at stores within 100 miles of Mount Rushmore for the period 2019-2023. Combining this data and Mount Rushmore visitation data from the National Park Service, I develop and compare multiple models that use fixed effect regressions to estimate average spending per visit in the Accommodation, Food Service, Retail, and Arts/Entertainment/Recreation sectors. Using results from the best performing model, for 2022, I estimate Mount Rushmore visitor spending to be $41.0 million in the Accommodation sector, $38.4 million in the Food Service sector, $154.8 million in the Retail sector, and $6.4 million in the Arts/Entertainment/Recreation sector. I compare these estimates with NPS survey-based Mount Rushmore visitor spending estimates. I find that model estimates for the Food Service and Retail sectors are statistically indifferent to NPS estimates, however, model estimates for the Accommodation and Arts/Entertainment/Recreation sectors are below NPS estimates. I find several strengths and weaknesses in the credit/debit card transaction models. One strength is the use of observed spending data rather than stated spending data. Another strength is the representation of yearly visitor spending habits. A third strength is the ability to provide measures of estimate precision, like standard errors. One weakness is the inability to identify park-specific visitor spending when other nearby tourist attractions have similar visitation. Another weakness is the failure to account for visitor trip purpose. Additionally, I find that Safegraph Spend underrepresents spending in the Accommodation sector since vacation rental websites (like Airbnb) are not reflected in the data. Looking forward, further research should focus on methodological refinement and the integration of other data sources to improve visitor spending estimation using credit/debit card transaction data.
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    Public health considerations for a potential Lyme disease vaccine in the United States: cost of illness, vaccine acceptability, and net costs of a vaccination program
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Hook, Sarah A., author; Peel, Jennifer, advisor; Anderson, Brooke, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Magzamen, Sheryl, committee member
    To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document.
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    The economic contribution of river recreation and tourism in the Little Yampa Canyon, Colorado
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Burkard, Matthew, author; Thilmany, Dawn, advisor; Hill, Rebecca, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Guo, Tian, committee member
    The Yampa River is a key driver of outdoor recreation and tourism opportunities to the city of Craig, Colorado and the surrounding Moffat County, drawing in river-based recreators and tourists from surrounding areas. So, opportunities to enhance access are important to a region that seeks to further diversify its economic portfolio in light of broader transitions occurring in the energy and agriculture sector. A land acquisition proposal by the Bureau of Land Management seeks to expand public access to the Yampa River and the nearby recreation amenities and improving highway access to the current Little Yampa Canyon Special Recreation Management Area, while protecting additional wildlife habitat and fisheries. The purpose of this research is to collect and analyze outdoor recreation and tourism spending data from resident and non-resident recreators near Craig, Colorado to ascertain one set of potential benefits of such an investment. This research employs an intercept survey at key access points along the Yampa River near the proposed land acquisition to capture recreator information such as dollar amounts spent across common expenditure categories, typical recreation habits, user perceptions of current and proposed recreational resource access and qualities, and demographic information. This paper utilizes an input-output methodology via IMPLAN to produce economic contribution estimates using data received from intercept surveys to quantify both the baseline contribution of recreation near Craig, Colorado and the potential, additional expenditure Craig would receive with an increase in local and publicly accessible recreation opportunities provided through the BLM's land acquisition. This paper also performs a sensitivity analysis to estimate economic contributions at lower levels of participation as compared to an estimated typical year. Using spending data combined with user responses, this paper seeks to provide key insights into user perceptions for consideration in future policy and management decisions impacting Moffat County's recreation and tourism economy, with insights important to greater Northwest Colorado as well.
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    The recreational value and social cost of national parks: an application of the travel cost method
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Lallement, Luc, author; Burkhardt, Jesse, advisor; Richardson, Leslie, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Iverson, Terry, committee member
    Studies that value the natural resources and recreational opportunities of a National Park have been explored for some time. Of the myriad techniques used to determine these values, our study uses the Travel Cost Method (TCM) to estimate the consumer surplus (CS) value per-visit for several National Parks surveyed in 2022. Previous studies have typically been conducted for one site or region at a time. Our data is novel in that it contains survey results from five different National Parks as part of the first year of the Socioeconomic Monitoring Survey conducted by the National Park Service (NPS). The parks range in size, purpose, and popularity, and we examine heterogeneity in CS estimates across these differences. Many of our CS estimates are new to the TCM literature, and some provide an update to existing estimates. In addition, we use the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) to calculate the social cost of trips to the surveyed parks. These results are used to determine the total social cost of visitation, how costs would change if social costs were incorporated into the travel cost, and finally how visitation would change in this scenario. Our methodology builds on previous literature in the TCM space by incorporating econometric techniques to address multi-purpose visitors and on-site data collection. We find that our CS estimates are in line with previous TCM estimates. When social costs are incorporated, we estimate that there would be fewer visitors to the parks when social costs exceed an individual's estimated willingness to pay, if social costs were hypothetically incorporated via a carbon tax. Our study contributes to both the methodology of TCM studies and CS estimates of use-value for natural resources and can inform future authors on how to incorporate outside data (such as the SCC) to a well-established field. In addition, our estimates can be used by the NPS to inform policy decisions and benefit-cost analysis.
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    Three essays on food economics
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Mendis-Murukkuwadura, Sachintha Sarani, author; Bonanno, Alessandro, advisor; Berning, Joshua, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Cleary, Rebecca, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member
    This dissertation is comprised of three analyses of households' food acquisition behavior. In Chapter 2, we estimate the substitution between different food categories and time allocated to food purchase and preparation using a demand system which includes both the demand for time and that for goods, by extending the Exact Affine Stone Index-EASI (Lewbel & Pendakur, 2009). This is the first study estimating Resource Engel Curves (which characterize the relationship between "total resources" and resource share), and goods-time cross price elasticities. For this analysis we created a unique dataset by merging the 2012 American Time Use Survey (ATUS) with the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), and perform the analysis for three sub-samples of households - 1) households participating in the SNAP program, 2) SNAP-eligible households that do not participate in the program, and 3) SNAP-ineligible households. The objective of Chapter 3 is to study the relationship between time allocated to different food related activities and households' diet quality of food acquisitions measured by their Healthy Eating Index - HEI, across the distribution of HEI. We utilize the same datasets developed in Chapter 2 and an Unconditional Quantile Regression estimator to perform the analysis on the same three sub-samples of households used in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4, we assess whether households whose children are exposed to Farm-to-School Programming show different fruits and vegetables purchasing patterns than those that are not. We matched two years of the USDA Farm to School Census (2013 and 2015) to Information Resource Incorporated Consumer Network Panel household-level data on Food-At-Home fruits and vegetables expenditures. We perform our analysis focusing on sub-samples of households residing in metro and non-metro areas, as well as by households below and above 185 percent of the poverty line.
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    Three essays on horizontal regulation limiting alcohol sales
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Palardy, Nathan, author; Costanigro, Marco, advisor; Cannon, Joe, committee member; Berning, Josh, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member
    This dissertation considers the impact of loosening horizontal regulations that limit competition among alcohol retailers on producers, retailers, and consumers. A recent trend towards the liberalization of alcohol retail has led many states, including Washington, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Utah, Kansas, and Colorado, to relax horizontal restrictions and allow for the sale of alcohol at grocery and convenience stores. Prior to the law changes, the sale of almost all alcoholic beverages was restricted to liquor stores. The new retail channels have created opportunities and challenges for alcohol producers and traditional retailers while creating more choices for consumers. The first chapter provides a brief overview of the alcohol industry and regulation in the U.S. The second chapter examines how the legalization of full-strength beer sales in grocery and convenience stores impacted craft brewers in Colorado, a core region for craft beer production. A statewide survey of the marketing strategies of craft breweries revealed that the new retail channels brought limited change to how craft breweries sell beer. Large breweries appear able to leverage their scale and brand recognition to gain access to the grocery stores, while smaller breweries face significant logistical and distribution barriers. Grocery stores captured a substantial share of craft beer sales at the expense of liquor stores. Sales of craft beer in convenience stores remain negligible. The third chapter investigates the effect of liberalized beer sales on Colorado liquor stores. While prior research has examined the effects of alcohol liberalization on liquor stores at the state-level, the impact may vary between rural and urban communities. I exploit a novel dataset containing firm-level foot traffic patterns from SafeGraph Inc. to investigate the impact of liberalizing beer sales on liquor store foot traffic using two empirical approaches: interrupted time series analysis and state space forecasting. The policy change caused liquor store foot traffic to substantially decline in urban counties, but had no impact in rural counties, suggesting that rural liquor store shoppers did not substantially change shopping behavior. I discuss the implications for alcohol retailers, producers, and consumers. In my final chapter, I broaden my analysis of the effect of liberalized alcohol sales on liquor stores to include two additional states: Oklahoma and Kansas. I exploit heterogeneity in state policy to determine whether different levels of alcohol liberalization (e.g. legalizing beer and wine sales outside of liquor stores vs legalizing beer sales only) impacts the magnitude of the effect on consumers' decision to shop at liquor stores. I estimate the effect in each state using firm-level foot traffic data from SafeGraph Inc. and a novel difference-in-differences estimator. I find that alcohol liberalization had a substantial negative impact on liquor store foot traffic in all states, however, my ability to differentiate the impact of different levels of alcohol liberalization was limited. Results can help policy makers weigh the costs to liquor stores against the benefit to consumers.
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    Three essays on the economics of land use and conservation
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Shartaj, Mostafa, author; Suter, Jordan F., advisor; Manning, Dale T., committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Jones, Kelly, committee member
    This dissertation consists of three chapters focused on the economics of land use and conservation. The first chapter investigates the differences in groundwater use among wells irrigating State Land Board (SLB) parcels and nearby private parcels. SLB parcels represent leased parcels with limited tenure length and uncertainty of renewal. In the chapter, we demonstrate that wells irrigating SLB lands pump substantially more groundwater compared to non-SLB wells. The second chapter makes use of a novel dataset of discount rates elicited from agricultural producers across the United States to explore how estimates of discount rates for can be utilized to improve the performance of agri-environmental programs. The final paper examines camping in US Forest Service (USFS) campgrounds during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data on campground reservations made through recreation.gov, we illustrate how camping on USFS lands was impacted by infection rates, public health restrictions and proximity to metropolitan areas and National Parks (NPs). Imperfect property rights can lead to over-extraction of resources and provide disincentives to invest in conservation of the resource stock. In the first chapter, making use of a natural experiment, we explore the case of groundwater usage on State Land Board (SLB) parcels, relative to nearby private parcels. The SLB of Colorado leases out land to agricultural producers, with groundwater rights tied to the land leases. Leases by the SLB have tenure lengths of 10 years, where the leaseholder is allowed to renew their lease if they can match the highest bid for the next lease term. This generates uncertainty regarding access to future groundwater stocks. We contribute to the literature by demonstrating the causal impact of SLB designation on groundwater use. We show that wells irrigating SLB lands, on average, use 15 to 24 percent more groundwater compared to nearby private lands. Adoption of conservation practices in agriculture often requires upfront costs, while the private benefits are produced in the future. As such, farmers' time preferences can play an important role in adoption decisions. In the second chapter, using elicited discount rates of farmers from 26 US states, we explore the role of farmers' discount rates in cover crop adoption, program participation, and continuation of cover cropping after the contract period. The data reveal that mean observed discount rates are lower both for farmers that adopt cover cropping and for farmers that participate in conservation programs, compared to those who do not. This suggests that time preferences play a key role in conservation adoption decisions. The empirical results are followed by a simulation analysis, which utilizes the discount rate data to explore benefits of tailoring conservation contracts based on discount rates. The simulations point out that a small increase in upfront payments can substantially increase cover cropping during the contract period, but they do little to increase continuation of cover cropping after the contract period. The simulations also reveal that tailoring the contract length and annual payment, according to the discount rate information, can allow policy makers to target higher levels of continuation, which are unattainable under the 5-year status quo contract. In the extreme case where the program administrator can observe individual discount rates, it is possible to dramatically reduce the costs of increasing continual adoption by individually tailoring the contracts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, US public land managers faced the challenge of catering to large increases in camping demand, while maintaining social distancing guidelines. In the final chapter, we use multivariate linear regression to analyze weekly changes in reservations to US Forest Service (USFS) campgrounds between 2019 and 2020. Our sample includes 1,688 individual USFS campgrounds from across the contiguous US. The results illustrate the dramatic increases in camping on USFS land that occurred in the summer of 2020 and demonstrate that increases in local infection rates led to significant increases in camping nights reserved in the summer. The results also illustrate that the increase in camping nights reserved at USFS campgrounds was particularly dramatic for campgrounds located near large metropolitan areas and near National Parks that saw increases in overall recreational visits. These results point to the important role that public lands played during the pandemic and can help guide public land resource allocations for campground maintenance and operation.
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    Three essays on the inequality of household food security
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Zhou, Siwen, author; Berning, Joshua, advisor; Bonanno, Alessandro, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member; Miller, Ray, committee member
    This dissertation contains three essays on the inequality of household food security in the United States. In particular, the second chapter examines the effect of economic cycle, particularly unemployment, on the likelihood of food insecurity for different immigrant households in the United States relative to native US households. As unemployment is not randomly determined for households, we create a Bartik instrument by exploiting exogenous variation in industry shares across locations interacted with national industry growth rates to identify the disproportional effect of unemployment rate on food insecurity for immigrant households. The third chapter examines how immigrant households use time and money to manage their household food security relative to natives. To overcome the potential measurement errors and endogeneity of household level time-use and expenditures, aggregated cell-level means of food production time and expenditures are employed as instruments separately to identify the causal effects of time and money inputs on household food insecurity and how these effects vary across immigrant and native households. The fourth chapter seeks to elucidate the long-term structural nature of food security dynamics through household financial asset holdings in United States. By adopting an econometric strategy, this chapter uses a 19-years panel dataset from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (2001-2019) to establish the new the Structural Probability of Food Security (SPFS) measure for long-run study of food security dynamics.
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    Three essays on welfare, well-being, and labor
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Chin, Sayorn, author; Zahran, Sammy, advisor; Mushinski, David, advisor; Miller, Ray, committee member; Bayham, Jude, committee member
    This dissertation explores several topics in welfare, well-being, and labor economics, with a focus on: (1) health, wealth, and racial and ethnic welfare inequality; (2) the natural environment and well-being; and (3) whether labor markets place a wage premia for jobs that require workers to consume disamenities. To achieve these goals, the study utilizes three distinct datasets and applies a range of machine learning and econometric techniques, including natural language processing algorithms, as well as dynamic panel data estimators, natural experiments, and microsimulations. In Chapter 1, titled "Beyond Income: Health, Wealth, and Racial/Ethnic Welfare Gaps Among Older Americans'', we estimate racial and ethnic disparities in well-being among the older U.S. population using an expected utility framework that incorporates differences in consumption, leisure, health, mortality, and wealth. We use longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) supplemented with data from the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS). Together, these provide a long and rich panel (1992-2016) for our analysis. Our measure broadly indicates that racial and ethnic inequality is larger than suggested by other welfare metrics such as income or consumption. We also find health, mortality, and wealth gaps are important in explaining the level of racial and ethnic welfare inequality among the older Americans in our sample, with leisure playing a comparatively minor role. Our decomposition exercises show that a majority of the estimated welfare gaps are determined by age sixty initial conditions as opposed to racial and ethnic differences in dynamic processes after age sixty. Our morbidity counterfactuals further suggest that eliminating common heath risk factors such as hypertension or diabetes in late-life only marginally closes overall welfare gaps. These simulations suggest that policies aimed at closing racial and ethnic gaps in late-life may be more successful and efficient if targeted earlier in the life-cycle. In other words, outside of direct wealth transfers, it may largely be too late to target such interventions directly at older populations. In Chapter 2, titled "The Morning Advantage: Differential Returns to Sunlight Exposure on Well-Being'', we estimate the effect of sunlight exposure on well-being by mimicking a natural experiment that utilizes the transition to daylight savings time as an external shock to the reallocation of sunlight between the morning and evening induced by differences in sunrise and sunset times across space, and time. We combine a collection of geolocated and timestamped tweets from Twitter with Natural Language Processing algorithms to create a comprehensive panel dataset of well-being (2014-2022) for the United States. Our findings show that the returns to sunlight on sentiment are stronger in the morning than in the evening. These results contribute significantly to the ongoing debate about whether to continue or abandon the practice of daylight savings. Specifically, the positive turn of sentiment in the morning highlights the underappreciated benefits to human well-being. Therefore, the potential shifting to darker mornings and brighter evenings following the proposed Sunshine Protection Act may do more harm than good. In Chapter 3, titled "The Compensation of Conscience: Evidence from the U.S. Labor Market'', we investigate compensating differentials in the U.S. labor market related to the degree of moral compromise required in different occupations. Specifically, we explore whether jobs that require workers to compromise their moral values offer higher compensation to compensate for the disamenities that contradict their moral beliefs. To conduct our analysis, we utilize data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) and supplement it with data from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) job descriptor, which allows us to develop a continuous measure of moral index across occupations. This data provides a rich and extensive panel spanning from 1997 to 2017 for our analysis. Our findings, obtained through the use of two-ways fixed-effects and first-difference models, indicate that jobs that require workers to compromise their moral principles are associated with higher compensation. This suggests that there is indeed a compensating differential for engaging in disamenities that conflict with a worker's moral values. Additionally, we observed that workers with a college education receive higher pay in jobs that require moral compromise, indicating that individuals with a college degree may have more employment opportunities and greater bargaining power, influencing their compensation preferences. Furthermore, we discovered evidence supporting an asymmetric relationship between changes in the occupational moral index and total hourly compensation. This relationship appears to be responsive to the intensity of moral compromise in the job.