Kimberly Rollins

On Solving the Multirotational Timber Harvesting Problem with Stochastic Prices: A Linear Complementarity Formulation

This article develops a two-factor real options model of the harvesting decision over infinite rotations assuming a known stochastic price process and using a rigorous Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman methodology. The harvesting problem is formulated as a linear complementarity problem that is solved numerically using a fully implicit finite difference method. This approach is contrasted with the Markov decision process models commonly used in the literature. The model is used to estimate the value of a representative stand in Ontarios boreal forest, both when there is complete flexibility regarding harvesting time and when regulations dictate the harvesting date.

Heterogeneous preferences for congestion during a wilderness experience

This analysis breaks down the congestion levels experienced during specific parts of a wilderness canoe trip. By explicitly addressing the heterogeneity in preferences for congestion during a trip, we were able to determine the relative value canoeists place on solitude at different points of a trip. Our econometric model utilizes a random effects probit framework to efficiently estimate the welfare impacts of congestion on each trip portion. The welfare effects of congestion levels vary across wilderness areas, parts of a trip and individuals.

Using willingness‐to‐pay to assess the economic value of weather forecasts for multiple commercial sectors

This paper uses an alternative to the usual cost-avoidance approach to estimating the value of weather forecast products. Value is estimated via a demand-based approach based on the willingness to pay of those who use weather forecast services. Contingent valuation is used to estimate the benefits generated by an automated telephone-answering device that provides weather forecast information to commercial users in the Toronto area of Ontario, Canada. Commercial sectors included in the study are construction, landscaping/snow-removal businesses, TV and film, recreation and sports, agriculture, hotel and catering, and institutions such as schools and hospitals. Average value per call varied by commercial sector, from

The economics of fuel management: Wildfire, invasive plants, and the dynamics of sagebrush rangelands in the western United States

2.17 for agricultural users to

A model to calculate ex ante the threshold value of interaction effects necessary for proposed intercropping projects to be feasible to the landowner and desirable to society

0.60 per call for institutional users, with an overall mean of

Sensitivity of WTP Estimates to Definition of ‘Yes’: Reinterpreting Expressed Response Intensity

1.20 per call. At roughly 13,750,000 commercial calls annually, this would result in an estimate of benefits generated by the service to commercial users of

Cheatgrass invasion and woody species encroachment in the Great Basin: Benefits of conservation

16,500,000 per year. Copyright

Latent Thresholds Analysis of Choice Data under Value Uncertainty

In this article we develop a simulation model to evaluate the economic efficiency of fuel treatments and apply it to two sagebrush ecosystems in the Great Basin of the western United States: the Wyoming Sagebrush Steppe and Mountain Big Sagebrush ecosystems. These ecosystems face the two most prominent concerns in sagebrush ecosystems relative to wildfire: annual grass invasion and native conifer expansion. Our model simulates long-run wildfire suppression costs with and without fuel treatments explicitly incorporating ecological dynamics, stochastic wildfire, uncertain fuel treatment success, and ecological thresholds. Our results indicate that, on the basis of wildfire suppression costs savings, fuel treatment is economically efficient only when the two ecosystems are in relatively good ecological health. We also investigate how shorter wildfire-return intervals, improved treatment success rates, and uncertainty about the location of thresholds between ecological states influence the economic efficiency of fuel treatments.

Optimal Livestock Management on Sagebrush Rangeland with Ecological Thresholds, Wildfire, and Invasive Plants

This article describes an approach to evaluate the difference in net present valued economic returns that would be expected from temperate intercropping as compared to annual cropping or tree farming alone. This tool can be used by landowners to provide a threshold level of the value of interaction effects required for a proposed intercropping project to break even, based on current data. The landowner would then need to consider, using information from other sources, whether the threshold is realistic for given site conditions. The threshold value is useful to agricultural policy-makers to consider economic instruments that would induce landowners to adopt intercropping, if it should be considered socially beneficial to do so. The approach measures the financial gap that exists between intercropping and annual cropping alone and compares this gap to the beneficial interaction effects that are associated with intercropping. The approach is demonstrated using experimental results from an on-going intercropping study at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada. A base model scenario using black walnut trees with annual crops is set up with a 5% discount rate, 96 trees per hectare, and sawlog prices for black walnut of

ESTIMATION OF MEDIAN WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR A SYSTEM OF RECREATION AREAS

1066 per 1000 bdft as a base case. The base model predicts that black walnut and corn intercropping returns