18
relatively common in recreation demand, and probably reflects the cross-sectional pattern
of usage by different income groups at a point in time more than the changes in an
individual's consumption as his or her income increases.
For the quality and price parameters, the signs do not indicate the direction of
impact, since the own- and cross-elasticities with respect to quality depend not only on
the #4D but also on the income elasticities [equations (12) and (13)]. The own- and cross-
elasticities with respect to price depend on both the income and quality effects in addition
to the #4![equations (9) and (10)], since #4 = #4! + #4D ∙ z.
The sample means of elasticities at observed price, quality, and budget levels are
presented in Table 4.( Because these are Marshallian elasticities, the price elasticities are
not perfectly symmetric, though their signs are.) All three demands are own-price
inelastic, with elasticities ranging from -.1 at Point Reyes to -.55 at Monterey. As noted
in the Introduction, it is this own-price inelasticity that invalidates the use of several
common and/or flexible functional forms for measuring access values. The pattern of
cross-price elasticities suggests that Point Reyes and Monterey are substitutes; the
insignificant Half Moon price coefficient means its substitution relationship with the
other sites cannot be determined.
The income elasticity estimates, interestingly, suggest that demand is highly
income elastic at all sites. As noted above, this is likely reflecting the relative patterns of
visitation by income groups in the different areas: in Point Reyes, those with higher
budgets for leisure activities (higher income, more leisure time, or both) go more
frequently, while in Monterey, those with lower leisure budgets go less often.
The own-quality elasticities for each site (Table 4) are all positive, as one would
expect, and are larger in magnitude than the cross-site quality elasticities. Magnitudes of
the own-quality elasticity for Point Reyes and Monterey, the two sites with significant
quality effects, are large relative to the cross-effects. The elasticities of .06 and .10,