Date of Award

Fall 2025

Project Type

Dissertation

Program or Major

Economics

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

First Advisor

Ju-Chin Huang

Second Advisor

Robert Mohr

Third Advisor

John Halstead

Abstract

Environmental valuation is the process of assigning monetary value on environmental goods and services, which do not easily have market prices. It is, however, possible to over- or underestimate the economic valuation of outdoor recreation issues, specifically (1) recreational fishing and (2) beach recreation. Despite their different focuses, both case studies share a common objective of refining methodologies to better understand and address complex environmental issues from an economic perspective. Traditional recreation valuation techniques often lack explicit connection to ecology, which can be impacted by various factors. Addressing this gap, in the first part of my dissertation, I propose a novel approach that integrates ecological modeling with a valuation framework from a comprehensive study conducted by Ready et. al. (2018). By constructing an ecological model of Lake Michigan’s sport fish species and deriving simulated results throughout a 50-year period, I demonstrate how linking ecological systems with valuation methodologies can enhance welfare estimation. Results indicate that if the invasion expands to the entire Lake within two decades, the welfare loss of recreational fishermen exceeds the static welfare loss calculated in previous literature. Therefore, the timing of the invasion and ecological detail enhance the welfare estimation. In the second part of my dissertation, I examine alternative correction methods of on-site sampling biases, in count data models, and determine which method of correction offers a more representative recreation demand analysis through a comparative analysis of on-site data to data from the general population. I estimate a demand function for recreational trips to Plum Island, MA for the general population from data collected via mail from randomly selected residents in Northern Massachusetts. Results indicate that Shi-Huang’s correction method more closely approximates the benchmark mail survey welfare estimate, reinforcing the importance of accurate methodological correction for policy-relevant demand analysis.

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