Abstract

KIDO, Antonio; SEIDL, Andrew  and  LOOMIS, John. Panel estimators that combine travel cost and contingent behavior data sets for evaluating protected areas. agric. soc. desarro [online]. 2005, vol.2, n.2, pp.75-82. ISSN 1870-5472.

Although conservation policies and practices have always been influenced by political and economic factors, economic analysis has played a limited role in conservation decision making until recent years. Many people are realizing that the fundamental forces driving the loss of biological diversity (e.g. land conversion and over exploitation of natural parks) have economic roots. This paper extends a fairly conceptual innovation used by Cameron (1992) for measuring impure public goods. A model was developed using the information of a travel cost set and a contingent behavior set by imposing restrictions in the cross equation parameters without losing consistency in the utility function specified. The present value of tourism visits to the monarch butterfly sanctuary using the probit model was calculated from a range of discount rate options. This present value ranges from 35 to 80 million dollars. The own price elasticity for the model using admission fees was also estimated for calculating the revenue maximizing admission fee. The optimal entrance fee from the landowners' perspective was calculated at 15 dollars.

Keywords : Stated information; revealed information; random probit model; impure public goods.

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