Valuing Access to our Public Lands: A Unique Public Good Pricing Experiment

In all of our results so far, we assume that households are motivated to purchase the NRP based on its
economic value. That is, people purchase the NRP pass because doing so results in a savings in expected
at-the-gate expenses for visiting federal recreation sites. This assumption has some empirical support:
83% of the RDD sample (and more than 90% of the NPF sample) state that “the number of times the
household expects to visit federal lands” and “the price of the pass compared to the cost of entrance fees”
are important reasons to purchase the pass. But there are other reasons a household may purchase the
pass. First, the household may receive convenience value, which refers to the reduced transaction costs
associated with using the NRP rather than having to make separate payments for each entrance fee. A
smaller but still substantial fraction of the RDD sample (76%) states that “the convenience of one annual
pass” is important. That figure is even higher in the NPF sample (94%). There may also be stewardship
value, if the household views the NRP as a method for contributing to the maintenance and improvement
of federal lands and facilities. And households may systematically over-estimate the number of expected
trips to federal recreation sites or the associated entry fees. Any of these factors (and perhaps others)
might encourage households to purchase the NRP at a greater rate than the basic “economic” assumption
would imply. Consequently, our estimates to this point represent a lower bound on the demand for the
NRP pass based on economic considerations.

We believe the economic rationale for purchasing the pass is reasonable. However, the open-ended
survey questions reveal a few households do express stewardship concerns. Furthermore, in the
parametric model the coefficient for ALL REVENUE, which could be considered a weak proxy for
stewardship, is a positive and statistically significant predictor of WTP. In addition, the average expected
number of trips within the next year (3.58 and 5.98 for RDD and NPF) are slightly higher than the
average number of typical trips (3.09 and 5.89), which might indicate some over-estimation of upcoming
trips.¹³

¹³ For both samples, the estimated and actual average numbers of trips are not statistically different from one another
at a 10% significance level.

21

<<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   >>

More intriguing information