Simulated markets, hypothetical markets, and travel cost analysis: alternative methods of estimating outdoor recreation demand

摘要: This paper introduces the simulated market method (SM) of estimating outdoor recreation values and compares it to two widely applied alternative approaches, the travel cost method (TC) and the hypothetical market method (HM). The distinguishing characteristic of SM is that it uses actual monetary transactions involving recreational opportunities to estimate consumer surplus. This paper reports results of the first application of SM to outdoor recreation, an experiment involving actual cash payment in exchange for hunting permits. Its nearest antecedent in the economics literature is Bohn's study of the demand for a television program.TC has a much longer history. It was originally suggested in 1947 by Hotelling and later refined by Trice and Wood, Clawson, Clawson and Knetsch and others. A more complete explanation of TC is given below. It will suffice at this point to say that TC infers a demand function from the behavior of recreationists who face different travel (and other) expenses. In this way, travel and other costs are proxies for recreational prices. TC is undoubtedly the most widely applied approach. A list of the more accessible recent applications includes Brown and Nawas; Burt and Brewer; Cesario and Knetsch; Cicchetti, Fisher and Smith; Gum and Martin; and V. Kerry Smith among many others. Some researchers have also experimented with an alternative method which at various times has been termed the direct questioning method, the questionnaire approach, the Davis method, and contingent valuation. We will refer to it here as the hypothetical market method (HM) to emphasize that demand estimates are based on