Working Paper #2011-03 – The Economic Value of Viewing Migratory Shorebirds on the Delaware Bay: An Application of the Single Site Travel Cost Model Using On-Site Data

The Economic Value of Viewing Migratory Shorebirds on the Delaware Bay: An

Application of the Single Site Travel Cost Model Using On-Site Data

by Peter E.T. Edwards, George R. Parsons, Kelley H. Myers

Abstract

Using data from an on-site survey of recreational birders in southern Delaware during the annual horseshoe crab/shorebird spring migration, we estimated four truncated count data models of recreation demand accounting for endogenous stratification due to onsite sampling. We analyzed day-trips only and conducted sensitivity analysis on measurement of the value of time and inclusion of covariates. Our estimates from the models using all covariates were in the range of $40 to $178/trip/household (2008$). The variation is due to differences in the value of time. The average household size is 1.66.

JEL Codes: Q51

Keywords:  Travel-Cost Model, Shorebirds, Valuation