The Social Value of Seascapes in the Jurien Bay Marine Park: An Assessment of Positive and Negative Preferences for Change

The Jurien Bay Marine Park, Australia, is known for its pristine seascapes, including views of the ocean and of the coastline. To aid the management of the various seascapes, this paper estimates aspects of the social value of these seascapes through the use of a contingent valuation study. Positive and negative preferences for change were accommodated within the survey design and model estimation. A single‐function extended spike model was employed to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for protection of the seascapes, and was later constrained to a restricted version of a spike model. The restricted model identified that a proportion of the population had a positive preference for change within the seascapes, but a larger proportion had a negative preference, resulting in a positive net WTP to maintain seascapes in their current condition. Seascapes with coastal views were determined as having the highest social value; however, the value of the ocean seascapes followed closely behind. The positive welfare estimate for natural seascapes provides a reason for their preservation.     

Value elicitation for multiple quantities of a quasi‐public good using open ended choice experiments and uniform price auctions

Choice experiments and experimental auctions have become popular mechanisms for estimating willingness to pay (WTP). However, these methods have primarily been used for estimating WTP for single units of goods. We analyze the results from experimental auctions and choice experiments in the context of multiple quantities of a quasi‐public good (animal welfare product). We show that the use of WTP values for a single unit of a product, a common practice in experimental valuation literature, can result in underestimation of aggregate demand. We use and compare open ended choice experiments (OECE), second price Vickrey auctions, and random Nth price auctions as mechanisms for valuing WTP. Our results also suggest that individual level demand estimates from OECE are less elastic than demand estimates from uniform price auctions.     

Valuing Australian botanic collections: a combined travel‐cost and contingent valuation study*

Economic values of biological collections in three Australian botanic gardens in Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney were estimated using the travel‐cost method (TCM) and the contingent valuation method (CVM). The TCM component of the study produced average per‐trip consumer surplus (CS) values of $39 and $18 for single‐ and multiple‐site visitors, respectively, for each botanic garden, resulting in an estimate of approximately $194 million for the total social welfare generated by trips to the three sites. Marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for access to botanic gardens was also investigated through payment vehicles of entry fees or higher parking charges using the CVM component. The analysis revealed a positive mean WTP of between $3 and $5 per trip per person. The difference between the CVM and TCM results reflect the different underlying concepts of value under investigation: average CS per visit for the TCM and the utility arising from a marginal visit for the CVM. Marginal changes in CS from the TCM were derived. The confidence intervals from the TCM marginal values overlap the WTP estimates from the CVM. These findings will be useful for resource management decisions in the botanic gardens collection in Australia.