Joseph Little

The Southwestern Market for Big-Game Hunting Permits and Services: A Hedonic Pricing Analysis

Individuals pursuing big-game hunting in the Southwestern United States are presented with a wide array of opportunities, including public lotteries and market-based allocations (e.g., auctions, private transactions). The marketing of big-game hunts and associated services by landowners, guides, and outfitters is increasingly common and supported by state-sanctioned, transferable permit allocations. Given the range of permit and services combinations now available in the market, prices can be expected to vary systematically across attributes of the hunt transaction. Using a sample (n = 942) collected from information posted online and a follow-up telephone survey, this research employed hedonic pricing analysis to examine the regional market for big-game permits and associated hunting services in the Southwest. Estimation results allowed the implicit price of different attributes to be identified. Results also have policy relevance, including: understanding trends in ranch prices, assessing poaching losses, and evaluating the revenue generation of public entities in the regional market.

Investigation of stated and revealed preferences for an elk hunting raffle.

The charter forest experiment at the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) in New Mexico provides land managers, policymakers, and researchers a unique opportunity to examine an alternative public land management institution. The VCNP mature bull elk permit lottery has been the largest revenue-generating recreation program at the preserve since the program’s inception in 2002. This paper uses stated and revealed preference ticket purchase data, collected through an online survey, to estimate a set of ticket demand equations for the purpose of assessing revenue generation, access, and the willingness to donate to this program. (JEL Q20)

The Persistence of Subsistence: Wild Food Harvests in Rural Alaska, 1983-2013

Many Alaskans depend on family-centered harvests of wild fish, wildlife, and plants in what could be considered a home production model. State and federal laws provide priorities for these “subsistence uses,” a divisive political issue in Alaska. We explore Alaska’s subsistence economies using community-level demographic, economic, and subsistence harvest estimates from more than 18,000 household surveys administered during 354 projects in 179 Alaska communities. Neither mean subsistence harvests nor mean incomes are significantly associated with time alone. But harvests are associated with time in multiple regression models that explain more than 60% of the variation in mean subsistence harvests per person at the community level. Propensity score matching finds that roads have significant, strong, and negative effects on subsistence harvests, but no significant effects on incomes. Results suggest that – given sustainably managed renewable resources and appropriate levels of exclusion – subsistence economies can co-exist with market economies.

Insights from a harvest trip model for non-timber forest products in the interior of Alaska

The harvest of non-timber forest products (NTFP) for personal uses such as hobbies and handicrafts, cooking and canning, and recreation is an important pursuit for many residents in Alaska (Pilz and others 2006). Five categories of NTFP have been designated by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization: (1) foods; (2) medicinal plants; (3) floral greenery and horticulture products; (4) fiber and dye plants, lichens, and fungi; and (5) oils, resins, and chemicals extracted from plants, lichens, and fungi (McLain and Jones 2002). As noted by Alexander and others (2002), interest in the harvest and use of NTFP has grown in the United States. Such products are harvested from forests throughout the United States (McLain and Jones 2002). While attention has been directed toward commercial aspects of NTFP use and harvest, cultural, religious, and social considerations are also important (Jones and Lynch 2002).