PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Kenneth A. Baerenklau
TI  - A Latent Class Approach to Modeling Endogenous Spatial Sorting in Zonal Recreation Demand Models
AID  - 10.3368/le.86.4.800
DP  - 2010 Nov 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 800--816
VI  - 86
IP  - 4
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/86/4/800.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/86/4/800.full
SO  - Land Econ2010 Nov 01; 86
AB  - A method for incorporating unobserved heterogeneity into aggregate count data frameworks is presented and used to control for endogenous spatial sorting in zonal recreation models. The method is based on latent class analysis, which has become a popular tool for analyzing heterogeneous preferences with individual data but has not yet been applied to aggregate count data. The method is tested using data on backcountry hikers for a southern California study site and performs well for relatively small numbers of classes. The latent class model produces substantially smaller welfare estimates compared to a constrained version that assumes homogeneity throughout the population. (JEL Q51)