Temporal reliability of willingness to pay from the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation1

Abstract

The US Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (FHWAR) has been a source of information on wildlife-related recreation since 1955. The contingent valuation method has been used to estimate willingness to pay for recreation trips in the 1980, 1985, 1991, 1996 and 2001 surveys. However, relatively little comparative analysis over time has been performed. Similar value elicitation formats were used in the 1991 and 1996 surveys for bass and trout fishing, deer hunting and nonconsumptive wildlife recreation. We statistically analyze these data to assess the temporal reliability of the willingness to pay. We control for the effects of trip quality and socioeconomic variables and find that willingness to pay is significantly lower in 1996 for each activity. A subtle, but important, change in the 1996 question format may drive the result of lower willingness to pay. 1 A previous version of this article was presented at the 129th annual meeting of the American Fisheries Society, September 1999, Charlotte, NC. The authors thank two anonymous referees for constructive comments.