Total Economic Valuation of Great Lakes Recreational Fisheries

Abstract

We use stated preference methods to estimate willingness to pay to avoid reductions in recreational catch in Great Lakes fisheries. We compare willingness-to-pay estimates where uncertain “in favor” votes are recoded to “against” votes to an attribute nonattendance model that focuses on the policy cost attribute. We find that the two hypothetical bias models yield similar results. We estimate another attribute nonattendance model that considers the scope of the policy and find that the scope elasticity is significantly underestimated in other models. The willingness to pay in this last model is higher than in the other models.