The total economic value of the National Park Service: a contingent valuation method analysis
Date
2014
Authors
Quay, Brian, author
Loomis, John, advisor
Seidl, Andrew, committee member
Kling, Robert, committee member
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Abstract
This thesis estimates the total economic value (TEV) of avoiding up to 40% cuts to the National Park Service (NPS) park lands and NPS programs. TEV is made up of visitor use and nonuse values (existence can bequest values). We use a Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) survey to estimate benefits generated by the NPS, from a nationwide perspective. Thus, in order to estimate the TEV of the NPS, we use the Turnbull estimator and a logit regression to estimate household-level willingness to pay (WTP) from the data collected in the CVM survey. This study, by nature, is a benefit analysis. It uses stated consumer preferences to estimate aggregate WTP. The mail and internet survey had a response rate of 18 percent with a sample size of 317. Depending on model specification we find conservative lower bound annual household WTP estimates for avoiding up to 40% cuts to NPS park lands of $243.39 and $194.20 for avoiding up to 40% cuts to NPS programs (both values were estimated using the Turnbull estimator), and upper bound estimates of $1,015.10 for avoiding up to 40% cuts to NPS park lands and $430.00 to avoid up to 40% cuts to NPS programs (both values were estimated using a logit model). By summing the above statistics, we find estimated annual household WTP for avoiding up to 40% cuts to the NPS ranging from $437.59 to $1,445.10. Applying the lower bound WTP estimate to 18 percent of the households in the United States (as consistent with the survey response rate, in order to treat nonresponses as 'no' votes), we conservatively estimate the annual TEV of avoiding up to 40% cuts to the NPS to be $9 billion. Using the upper bound household WTP estimate and applying it to the all households equates to an annual TEV of avoiding up to 40% cuts to the NPS to be $167 billion.
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Subject
contingent valuation
nonuse value
nonmarket valuation
National Park Service