SOME ISSUES CONCERNING SPECIFICATION AND INTERPRETATION OF OUTDOOR RECREATION DEMAND MODELS

same thing leaves a rather messy situation. Which
price is the variable of integration for deriving total
benefit estimates? Which price should be used for
estimating effects of changes in user fees?

If recreation can indeed be viewed as any other
marketable product, then perhaps the logical choice is
on-site costs, since user charges are after all,
themselves, on-site costs. This argument might be
strengthened considerably by some studies of
facilities where user charges have actually varied
significantly over the time period of analysis, which
would enable comparison of actual events with those
predicted by the on-site cost coefficient. Credulity
might even be courted by evidence that actual
variation in on-site costs is a matter mainly of genuine
price differences for similar bundles of ancillary
inputs. No such studies have been found by these
writers.

Travel costs then would be identified as a price
of some bundle of related goods, in the same way as
the price of gasoline used in driving to the
supermarket is generally viewed as the price of
gasoline, and not of bacon and eggs. Travel costs, it
also has been noted [6], are highly correlated with
distance traveled and hence with travel time, and thus
provide some allowance for the possible effectiveness
of a time constraint. It may be appropriate in some
cases to let them play only such roles as these.

REFERENCES

[1] Brown, William G., and Farid Nawas. “Impact of Aggregation on the Estimation of Outdoor Recreation
Demand Functions.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 55:246-249, May 1973.

[2] Clawson, Marion. Methods of Measuring the Demand for and Value of Outdoor Recreation. Resources for
the Future Reprint No. 10. Washington, D.C.: Resources for the Future, 1959.

[3] Clawson, Marion, and Jack L. Knetsch. Economics of Outdoor Recreation. Baltimore: the Johns Hopkins
Press, 1966.

[4] Edwards, J. A.; K. C. Gibbs, L. J. Guedry, and H. H. Stoevener. “The Demand for Outdoor Recreation in the
Bend Ranger District, Deschutes National Forest, Oregon.” Paper presented at the Natural Environments
Workshop, sponsored by Resources for the Future, Inc., at Missoula, Mont., Aug. 5-6, 1971. To be
published by the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station.

[5] Jennings, T. A., and K. C. Gibbs. Demand Estimates and Fee Policies for Camping at Florida State Parks.
University of Florida Agricultural Experiment Station Contributed Project No. 1623-1-A.

[6] Wilson, Robert R. “Demand Theory: Time Allocation and Outdoor Recreation.” Southern Journal of
Agricultural Economics, 3:103-108, Dec. 1971.

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