Entrance Fee Research Articles

Preserving the Desert: A History of Joshua Tree National Park by Lary M. Dilsaver

Reviewed by: Preserving the Desert: A History of Joshua Tree National Park by Lary M. Dilsaver Geoffrey L. Buckley Preserving the Desert: A History of Joshua Tree National Park. Lary M. Dilsaver. Staunton, VA: George F. Thompson, 2017. Pp. 472, maps, photographs. $38.50, soft cover, ISBN 978-1-938086-46-5. The thirty-five-day federal government shutdown of 2018–19 will long be remembered for the chaos and confusion it sowed. For those who cherish America's public lands it will be forever associated with images of campers running amok in California's Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP). According to reports in the Washington Post, the temporary suspension of entrance fees and absence of JTNP personnel attracted a surfeit of visitors who cut fresh roads, carved out new campsites, vandalized property, and felled some of the park's iconic Joshua trees. It was a stark reminder of how fragile—and vulnerable—many of the units managed by the National Park Service (NPS) are and the challenges the agency faces when it comes to balancing the preservation needs of the physical environment with the recreational needs of tourists. For geographer Lary Dilsaver—arguably the foremost expert on national parks in the country today—the headlines that placed JTNP in the national spotlight probably struck a familiar chord. In his latest contribution to the national parks literature, Dilsaver offers readers a detailed account of Joshua Tree's evolution from brainchild of desert lands activist Minerva Hamilton Hoyt in the early 1930s to a controversial national monument riddled with private inholdings and state lands in 1936 to a popular destination that covers more than 790,000 acres and attracts millions of visitors each year. Along the way Dilsaver deftly reconstructs the social, cultural, and political context within which decisions were made, recalling, for example, the ambivalence with which desert landscapes were treated when first proposed for protection—considered wastelands unworthy of national park status by even some NPS officials—and the fierce decades-long battle that homesteaders, [End Page 238] developers, legislators, prospectors, mining corporations, and others waged to prevent the NPS from gaining control of the area. That acts of vandalism, woodcutting, and even arson have been perpetrated in the past at JTNP is perhaps not surprising given the parties involved and stakes at risk. The volume begins with a series of exquisite photographs—thirtyeight plates in all—showing scenes of the monument (and, later, park) between 1936 and 2015, followed by several outstanding color maps. The narrative that comes next is organized chronologically and divided into three parts that are further subdivided into eight chapters and an epilogue. After a brief introduction to the region's geology, flora and fauna, settlement, and development, Part I, "Saving a Desert Garden," focuses on the nascent movement to protect the California desert, placing special emphasis on the enthusiastic leadership of Minerva Hoyt as well as changing perceptions of desert environments on the part of the NPS and the general public. Part II, "Managing a Desert National Monument," recounts the first twenty years of NPS stewardship and the struggles the agency faced cobbling together lands from private landowners, mining concerns, railroad companies, and the State of California. As Dilsaver points out, Joshua Tree was considered "a second-level unit of the national park system" during these years for three main reasons: "First, it was desert and still suffered from the lingering stigma that the dominant American culture attached to such lands. Second, it was a monument and not a park. Third, the NPS had only begun establishing units based on representation of biological or historical resources a decade earlier. Most senior officials in the NPS began their careers when the criterion for establishing a park was unparalleled magnificence" (233). In Part III, "Protecting a Desert National Park," Dilsaver documents the fortunes of the future national park through a period of maturation, stability, and expansion. In particular, he considers the management and research implications of sweeping federal legislation, most notably the Clean Air Act of 1963; the Wilderness Act of 1964; the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969; the Endangered Species Act of 1973; and the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, signed by...

The Mud Run

This case study explores the pricing, marketing, and budgeting issues facing a participant obstacle racing event. Students will act as new board members of a junior chamber of commerce, the host organization of a multi-year obstacle racing event. The board is tasked with making decisions about the event related to price setting for entry fees, marketing strategy (including advertising), and budgeting. With the goal of increasing the number of runners, as well as the profit, students will need to use historical data from the event to make informed, data driven decisions. The primary learning objectives include evaluating the various pricing methods available to sports organizations and strategic budget development.

Speculative Trading, Prospect Theory and Transaction Costs

A speculative agent with Prospect Theory preference chooses the optimal time to purchase and then to sell an indivisible risky asset as to maximize the expected utility of the round-trip profit net of transaction costs. The optimization problem is formulated as a sequential optimal stopping problem and we provide a complete characterization of the solution. Depending on the preference and market parameters as well as the initial price of the asset, the optimal strategy can be buy and hold, buy low sell high, buy high sell higher or no Transaction costs do not necessarily curb speculative trading. For example, while a large proportional transaction cost on sale can unambiguously suppress trading participation, introducing a fixed market entry fee will indeed encourage trading when the asset price level is high.

Willingness to pay for conservation of wetland ecosystem: Case of Mudun Ela and Kalu Oya Watersheds of Western Province, Sri Lanka

The wetland ecosystem provides a number of social and economic benefits for people. This importance is often neglected or undervalued and therefore wetlands are in a serious risk today. Specially, in relation to human activities and unwise utilization, wetlands around the globe are being modified, reclaimed and over-exploited due to high levels of resource consumption, land conversion and also upstream developments that alter the quality and flow of water that feeds into wetlands. Decision makers often have a little understanding of the environmental value of wetlands because wetlands are often perceived as having little or no value compared with uses that yield more visible and immediate economic benefits. In this circumstance, revelation and recognition of value of wetlands has been an essential issue which helps to protect such habitats and also it is useful to utilize the benefits of wetlands with a proper management. The present study was carried out with the aim of estimating the willingness to pay (WTP) for conservation of Mudun Ela and Kalu Oya watersheds, Western Province of Sri Lanka using Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). Respondents were randomly selected for data collection through face-to-face interview. The Tobit Model was used to estimate the entrance fee for conservation. The marginal effects on probabilities in the Tobit model suggests that Post-Graduate Degree holders and households who are using wetland as education, research and agricultural purposes play significant roles in the residents’ WTP for conservation of wetland. On the other hand, households who are using wetland for agricultural purposes have negative effects on willingness to pay for wetland conservation practices. Reasons behind is that many of the wetlands that have been managed in the past as paddy lands have been abandoned during the past few decades due to lack of water, low economic returns, water pollutions, lack of interest shown by younger generation for paddy cultivation, etc. Furthermore, use of wetlands for disposal of solid waste has also contributed to degradation of wetlands. Therefore, development of a strategic plan for management of wetlands within the two basins, Mudun Ela and Kalu Oya is a timely intervention that can help manage the remaining wetlands in an efficient manner.

Where are the numbers? Counting museum visitors in France

ABSTRACTIn the early twenty-first century, the Louvre is the most visited museum in the world. Yet little is known about how visit numbers to French museums developed. Compared to the Anglo-Saxon world, the collection and publication of visit data began late and was initially far from systematic. Some figures were collected in the late nineteenth century, but correspondence from the early twentieth century indicates that not even the Ministry of Fine Arts, overseeing the National Museums, was always aware of them. More complete numbers appeared from 1922 when entrance fees were introduced. However, visitors entering on free days were not yet counted. In the 1930s, data collection for the National Museums was systematized by the Directorate of National Museums, but figures were rarely published. The aim of this article is, therefore, to establish the sources that might be used for a quantitative approach to museum visiting in France and to reflect on the reasons for the initial indifference towards the counting of visitors and the standardisation with international practices over time. The article argues that the triggers for changes in the culture of counting in France were both internal and external. A prolonged debate about the introduction of entrance fees took place from the start of the Third Republic to the interwar years and let to the search for existing numbers in France and abroad. The Fine Arts Administration compiled data about practices in other countries and a number of monographs on the subject were published. The press also frequently referenced foreign examples. These documents provide a fascinating insight into comparisons and emulation of foreign practices at the time, allowing us to rethink the modern obsession with counting as the result of a transnational process.

Exploring the use, behaviour and role of urbanites towards management and sustainability of Kumasi Rattray Park, Ghana

The paper examines the attitudes and roles of urbanites towards the sustainability of urban parks; using Kumasi’s Rattray Park as a case. Using semi-structured interviews and observations, data was obtained from 217 users of the Park as well as relevant institutions mandated to manage urban parks in the Metropolis - Town and Country Planning Department, management staff of the Park, Department of Parks and Gardens and Environmental Protection Agency. Findings indicate that an entry fee was charged as a self-financing mechanisms for running the facility; and was thus deemed inappropriate by city authorities to further directly involve urbanites in management efforts. The Park was frequently patronised by the youth for outdoor activities. Contrary to other studies, participants did not prefer to regularly recreate at Parks within their immediate vicinities. The youth largely exhibited positive attitudes towards the sustainability of the Park. Whiles some participants expressed commitment to pay additional charges and make other efforts (voluntarism on safe use of facilities and sensitisation), others deemed the fees charged as enough to ‘pay’ for their contribution towards the Park’s sustainability. Factors such as poor condition of facilities, undesirable behaviour of other users, environmental quality and safety concerns limited widespread patronage of the Park which confirmed assumptions of the theory of planned behaviour. The study concludes that management approaches should incorporate roles and concerns of users and should reflect on delivering and creating stable urban landscape conditions that promote an inclusive and sustainable development.

Strong approximation and a central limit theorem for St. Petersburg sums

The St. Petersburg paradox (Bernoulli, 1738) concerns the fair entry fee in a game where the winnings are distributed as P(X=2k)=2−k,k=1,2,…. The tails of X are not regularly varying and the sequence Sn of accumulated gains has, suitably centered and normalized, a class of semistable laws as subsequential limit distributions (Martin-Löf, 1985; Csörgő and Dodunekova, 1991). This has led to a clarification of the paradox and an interesting and unusual asymptotic theory in past decades. In this paper we prove that Sn can be approximated by a semistable Lévy process {L(n),n≥1} with a.s. error O(n(logn)1+ε) and, surprisingly, the error term is asymptotically normal, exhibiting an unexpected central limit theorem in St. Petersburg theory.

The Complementary Effect of National Park Fee Increases on Visitor Spending in Gateway Communities

In 2017, the US National Park Service faced a nearly $12 billion maintenance backlog. To address this backlog, they announced plans to increase entrance fees in 17 of the most visited parks. As fees are a component of the travel cost, we consider price change effects on demand for park entry. Demand for the 17 parks is shown to be inelastic. Recognizing that spending in gateway communities is complementary to national park visitation, we use Yellowstone National Park as a case study on entrance fee increase effects on gateway communities. We estimate a $3.4 million annual loss in gateway community spending by visitors as a result of reduced visitation by those visitors who choose not to purchase a 7-day pass. Acknowledging the diminishing effect of the fee increase on travel costs, we further explore alternative means of structuring fees based on examples of other countries.

Auctions with Entry versus Entry in Auctions

We show that charging entry fees can sometimes dominate the benefit of recruiting additional bidders to auctions, even though the fees themselves implicitly reduce competition at the auction stage. We also highlight that admission fees and reserve prices are different instruments in a setting with uncertainty over entry costs, and that optimal mechanisms in such settings may be higher-dimensional than in Myerson (1981). Our results provide a counterpoint to the broad intuition of Bulow and Klemperer (1996) that market thickness often takes precedence over market power in auction design.

Economic valuation of biodiversity in South Asia: The case of Dachigam National Park in Jammu and Kashmir (India)

AbstractBiodiversity needs our attention because humans receive a wide range of direct and indirect benefits. Valuation of biodiversity is important to establish the importance of use and non‐use values of biological resources and cost of ignoring them. Against this backdrop, the aim of this study is to capture the recreational value of the national park biodiversity while employing travel cost method. To this end, the value of the economic benefits generated by sustainable management of Dachigam National Park in Jammu and Kashmir (India) is estimated using data from 301 visitors from different parts of the country. Data are analysed using count data models, and results reveal that travel cost method is suitable for valuation of various use values generated by environmental resources such as national parks. Estimated results show that consumer surplus per visitor per visit in present study is equal to Rs. 12,470 (US$197), which translates into an annual monetary recreational value of about Rs. 247,614,828 (approximately US$3,930,395). Demand for tourism services is also found to be fairly insensitive to travel cost/price. Therefore, an increase in entry fee and redistribution of proceeds can improve the physical and financial management of the park.

Migration, Entry Fees, and Stakeholdership

Abstract The current European ‘migration crisis’ encompasses increasing rates of migration and the accompanying failure of migrants, including both economic migrants and refugees, to integrate. In this paper, I focus on a normative analysis of the entry fee immigration system, providing both an internal and external critique. In the internal critique, I take for granted that states are best understood as clubs. However, states seem to share greater similarities with clubs that are too exclusive to allow membership to be purchased. In the external critique, I argue that imposing a substantial entry fee on club membership is impermissible if exclusion from membership deprives non-members of basic rights and interests, even if measures are taken to equalise their ability to pay. The upshot of the internal and external critique, I believe, is that membership ought not to be contingent on the payment of a fee, or more generally, the acceptance of current members.

Money, Refuge, and Justice

Abstract Margit Osterloh and Bruno S. Frey have introduced a novel, and potentially powerful, vision of migration rights, on which European states might respond to the current crisis of migration by conditioning admission on the payment of an entry fee. In this comment, I raise a worry about the morality of a world governed by such a principle. While Osterloh and Frey foresee a world in which migration is made more sustainable, with benefits for all stakeholders as a result, I am worried their program would lead to a lessening of support for the moral principles that gave rise to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. This Convention, I argue, ought to be preserved as a public statement of the principle that wealthy states have an obligation to bear some costs in the defense of human rights; Osterloh and Frey, I argue, might be undermining support for those moral principleswe currently have the most need to reinforce. Nevertheless, I argue that under emergency circumstances we might have a need for experimentation and political innovation, even if we are confident that what they produce will necessarily involve some degree of political wrongdoing; we might, in short, have a reason to try out proposals of the sort Osterloh and Frey defend, even if the moral worries I defend here are correct.

Towards a Rational Migration Policy

Abstract A rational migration policy has to be based on a coherent set of objectives and its instruments have to be chosen so as to best achieve these objectives. If the focus of migration policy is on the interests of the receiving country, it has to be decided, firstly, how many and what kind of immigrants are to be invited and, secondly, how many refugees are to be accepted for humanitarian reasons. The former are supposed to live permanently in the receiving country, while the latter may stay only temporarily. For the determination of these objectives, the economic and the non-economic consequences of immigration for the native population need to be analyzed. As there will be conflicts of interest, an open debate about the objectives of migration policy is necessary. In particular, it needs to be acknowledged that economic self-interest motivates, at least in part, both the critics and the proponents of immigration. Only when objectives have been agreed upon, can the appropriate instruments be chosen. Among those, the instrument of the entrance fee may play an important role, especially with regard to selecting qualified immigrants.

Cooperatives Instead of Migration Partnerships

Abstract Large-scale migration is one of the most topical issues of our time. There are two main problems. First, millions of persons will enter Europe in the short and middle run in spite of the firewalls we have built. When the income levels in the development countries raises, the migration pressure will even become stronger for a long time. Second, the present integration policy in most European countries is deficient. In contrast to common knowledge, strong social benefits for migrants, multicultural policies and fast naturalization do not further integration. To address these two problems we propose a procedure that takes into account that most migrants react to incentives in a rational way. Migrants in our countries are joining a cooperative and take advantage of many collective goods and social institutions the citizen of the immigration countries have provided. Migrants therefore should pay an entry fee to join the cooperative. This proposal has positive consequences for both the countries of immigration and of origin, as well as for actual and would-be immigrants. It has many advantages compared to other schemes.

Persepsi Pengunjung Terhadap Keberadaan Wana Wisata Puncak Damar dalam Pelestarian Hutan

This research to identify the characteristics of visitors and analyze the perception of visitors to management of Wana Wisata Damar Peak in forest conservation. Visitor perseption in review of service, infrastructure, environment (physical, social, and culture), and forest conservation. The research location in Pakualam Village, Darmaraja Subdistrict, Sumedang Regency, West Java Province from late june to erly july 2017. Research design is a quantitative design using survey method. Data collegtiorn using interviews, observation, and literature study. The selection of sample using simple random sampling, with the number of respondents as many as 100 people. Research result indicated that most ofvisitors came from Sumedang, male gender, aged between 20 – 29 years old, with high school education as a student and have income less than Rp 1.000.000, the purpose of visiting in general for a vacation because this place is attractive and cheap entry fees, most visitors budgeted for the cost of recreation per mont less than Rp 200.000. Almost half of the visitors came with friends using their own vehicles, doing a one-time visit and interested to visid again. Visitor perception to management of Damar Peak in the forest conservation is still not good because the manager and the community is still lacking in the effort of forest conservation.

Huellas: Making Strides for Breast Cancer Awareness

Amount raised: Annual, approximately 1.5 million Mexican pesos (MP) in sponsors and roughly the same in entrance fees. In the last 11 years, Huellas has raised over 15 million pesos. Background and context: For the past 11 years, Fundación Cima has organized an annual run/walk to raise awareness and fundraise for breast cancer. Huellas was the first coed breast cancer run walk in Mexico when it was first launched in 2008. It started out with 2750 participants and a cost of 1,246,000 MP. Through the years, Huellas has raised over 15 million pesos to support educational programs in six states of Mexico. 61 private companies and institutions from many sectors have sponsored Huellas. Aim: The more participants we have, the more interesting it is for the companies to sponsor it. Thanks to a 10 year success streak, we have set us the objective of reaching the 5000 participants in the 2018 edition to be held on May 13. This years' funds will be destined to 3 different branches of the educational program: training workshops in two states and the launching of the “Cimabus”, a transportation service provided by Fundación CIMA for women living in rural areas to get to their diagnostic exams or to their treatment appointments. The Cimabus will be working 5 days a week, 8 hours and will be placed in the state where the workshops are taking place. Strategy/Tactics: Fundación CIMA has managed to negotiate with media outlets a very interesting brand placement for our sponsors in all the printed publicity for Huellas so that their image is exposed as socially responsible companies at no expense to the company itself. This makes the sponsorship agreements a lot easier for our organization. To ensure the 5000 participants at the event we have developed strategies such as offering generous prizes for the winners, free samples of food and beauty products and our signature prize, a car. Huellas has become a powerful and emotional grass root movement to raise awareness, celebrate life, honor and remember patients and loved ones and call attention to patients´ needs. Program process: Huellas is not an isolated event that happens annually, it is a 12 month program. The process of planning, organizing, selling and most importantly, reporting to our donors, both individual and corporate ones, about the results of the run/walk and the results of the educational program implemented goes on throughout the year. Work for the following year, starts right after the run ends. Costs and returns: Investment: 2,061,354.77 MP Returns: Registrations 1,800,000.00 MP Sponsorships 1,115,000.00 MP This represents a ROI of 41.4% What was learned: Huellas started as a dream of bringing families together to raise awareness on breast cancer, while fundraising to support educational and early detection programs. We now need transform our Huellas community into a grass root movement that will come together to fight for access to quality care for every woman diagnosed while raising funds.

Locality based wealth rule favors cooperation in costly public goods games

Most previous investigations on spatial Public Goods Games (PGGs) assume that individuals are self-organized and all are engaged in every available groups, which is in sharp contrast with realistic situations, where players may follow some local rules of whether they can participant or not. In this paper we embed the locality based wealth rule into self-adaptive region based mechanism to study the evolution of cooperation. When deciding about participation, both individual wealth of a player and qualification threshold of its local region are considered. Player whose wealth exceeds its local limit is allowed to participant in the joint venture by paying some entrance fee, which is independent of its strategy of whether cooperate or not. Otherwise, they are forbidden in the current round. Our result shows that the proposed mechanism can boost the emergence and maintenance of cooperation, with moderate values of controlling strength, and when the entrance fee is not harsh. Furthermore, small region segmentation scheme favors cooperation better with small controlling factor, whereas larger regional size can slow down the extinction process of cooperators when controlling factor is relatively high. We hope that our findings could shed light on better understanding of the emergence of cooperation among structured populations.

Recreational value of El Valle and Carrascoy Natural Park

ABSTRACTIn this paper, an estimate of recreational value of El Valle and Carrascoy Natural Park is obtained by applying individual travel cost method. A consumer surplus or benefit of one visit (of one person) to this natural park has been estimated in 5.09 euros. This figure can provide information to stakeholders in order to determine recreational investments and to get a proper environment management and sustainable use of this place. As the model shows, people react to travel cost, and so, an entrance fee would reduce the number of visits in case of overcrowding. Nonetheless, given the profile of visitor, signalling and information about a proper use from an environmental point of view would be a socially preferable policy.

RESERVE PRICE VERSUS ENTRY FEE IN STANDARD AUCTIONS

Analysis of standard auction rules when bidders are risk averse is usually carried out under the assumption that the seller is able to set an optimal reserve. The role of entry fees has been generally overlooked in that analysis. We consider bidders with constant absolute risk aversion and show that reserve price is an essential tool in the second price auction while entry fee is essential in the first price auction. Furthermore, setting a reserve price and entry fee combination optimally may change some of the rankings of the standard auctions that hold under optimal reserves. (JEL D44)

Recreational visits to urban parks and factors affecting park visits: Evidence from geotagged social media data

Quantifying park use and understanding its driving factors is crucially important for increasing park use and thus human well-being. Previous studies have investigated the effects of different physical and sociocultural factors on park usage using visitor surveys and direct observations of park users, which are usually site specific and time consuming. We quantified and compared the number of visits for different types of parks in Beijing using freely available geotagged check-in data from social media. We investigated how park attributes, park location, park context and public transportation affected the number of park check-in visits, using multiple linear regressions. Despite potential biases in the use of social media data, using a park typology, we found that the number of visits was significantly different among different types of parks. While cultural relics parks and large urban parks had larger numbers of visits, neighborhood parks had higher visitation rates per unit of area. Park size and entrance fees were associated with increased numbers of visits for all types of parks. For parks that mainly serve local residents, the distance to urban center significantly affected park use. The number of bus stops was positively correlated with park visits, suggesting that increased accessibility through public transportation leads to more visits. The results indicated that improving park accessibility via public transportation and planning small, accessible green spaces in residential areas were effective in improving park use.