Environmental Economics

The Power of the Advisor/Advisee Relationship

I know I don't post much anymore, but I wanted to put this in writing somewhere. Every two weeks, in my role as Director of the School of Environment and Natural Resources at Ohio State, I write a reflection for our faculty newsletter titled (creatively) 'Thoughts from the Director'. This was my reflection this week (some of the facts/dates might be off as I am relying on memory):

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I’m going to ask your indulgence for what’s admittedly a more personal reflection than usual.  

Last week, I received some devastating news. A former PhD student of mine—a 2011 graduate of Ohio State and now a full professor at Colgate University—was diagnosed less than a month ago with an aggressive form of cancer. The cancer had already spread to her lungs, liver, bones, and brain. 

Carolina was a special student. In 2006, she was part of a large cohort—three of whom would eventually become my advisees thanks to a large NSF grant I led. Her research focus was far afield from mine. While I specialized in environmental economics, Carolina was interested in the intersection of gender roles, social norms, and economic outcomes in developing countries. 

In 2009, after facing difficulties with her assigned advisor, Carolina came to me and asked if I would co-advise her. I had taught her in our first-year Quantitative Methods course, and I knew her to be bright, fearless, and unafraid to speak her mind. Some found her demeanor off-putting—I found it admirable, exactly the type of courage needed to break into a notoriously non-diverse field (at the time, less than 10% of academic economists were women). 

I agreed to be her advisor under two conditions: 1) For funding reasons, she needed to work on my NSF project, which was not directly in her field, and 2) I wouldn’t be teaching her what she needed to know for her dissertation work, she would be teaching me. 

For the next two years, we met weekly—often more—and Carolina brought me into her world of development economics, gender theory, and intrahousehold bargaining. She guided me through the literature, challenged my assumptions, and broadened my intellectual horizons. I challenged her as well, but I guarantee you: I learned far more from Carolina than she ever did from me. 

Her dissertation was outstanding. It won our department’s best dissertation award and helped her land a tenure-track position at Colgate, a top liberal arts college. She quickly rose through the ranks, eventually earning a named professorship and a secondary appointment at Cornell University. 

Although we didn’t talk as often in recent years, we stayed in touch. And no matter how long it had been, she always opened with the same greeting: 

“Hi Advisor!” 

At first, I thought she was joking. Over time, I came to realize it was genuine, heartfelt. So, I would always end our conversations with a reply: 

“Goodbye, advisee.” 

Years later, Carolina told me that my willingness to advise a student whose work had almost no overlap with mine—we had one paper together (from the NSF project), and no other shared research—gave her the confidence to believe she could make it in academia. She told me she had modeled her own mentoring style after mine. 

Our paths diverged—my move into administration, her dealing with personal challenges. I hadn’t spoken with Carolina for a while. We last spoke in late December. I’d heard she had been struggling with mental health and was questioning her future in academia, so I reached out just to check in. She seemed in a good place. 

Then, this past Saturday, while sitting at a bar with my wife, I got a text from another former advisee—one from Carolina’s cohort, now an associate dean at Clemson.  

The message was brief: 

“We lost Carolina today.” 

I was stunned. 

Less than a month after her diagnosis. 

Just four days after I’d heard. 

Gone. 

No chance to reach out. 

No chance to offer support. 

No chance to do more. 

Just… gone. 

In the messages that followed, another colleague who had been close with Carolina as well asked me how I was doing.  

I replied: 

“I’m not sure what emotions I have right now. Obvious sadness, but anger and regret for not reaching out more. Just stunned.” 

She responded: 

“My partner would say that the mind can always find something to regret or blame yourself for, when someone dies. But I know that Carolina really loved you and always felt supported by you. You did enough by her.” 

It was the right message at the right moment. 

Because I had lost track of two things. 

First, I had forgotten the impact we have on our students—not just as scholars, but as humans. We help shape their journeys. We are not just guides through research or academia; we are often mentors, role models, and confidants. That impact can last a lifetime. 

Second—and perhaps more profoundly—I had forgotten the impact our students have on us. Carolina taught me, stretched me, challenged me. She left an imprint on me that I didn’t fully appreciate until I was sitting in that bar, staring at my phone. Stunned. 

So, I share this with you not only to honor Carolina, but to remind all of us: the advisor–advisee relationship is important. It is a bond that can shape lives—on both sides. 

Goodbye, advisee. 

New article in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism

We are pleased to let you know that the final open access version of your article The effect of event quality on participants’ intention to revisit a sport event: Monetary valuation and mitigation of hypothetical bias is now available online, containing full bibliographic details. Are you ready to share it with the world? This Science Direct link is a quick and easy way to share the final version of your article with colleagues, co-authors and friends.

Your article link: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S2213-0780(25)00008-8

Kinda like Lazurus of Bethany

On January 29 I posted this: R.I.P. National Nature Assessment. Now today, from the NY Times: "Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.": 

The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States.

But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, an environmental scientist named Phil Levin, sent an email telling members of his team that their work had been discontinued.

But it wasn’t the only email he sent that day.

“This work is too important to die,” Dr. Levin wrote in a separate email to the report’s authors, this one from his personal account. “The country needs what we are producing.”

Now key experts who worked on the report, called the National Nature Assessment, are figuring out how to finish and publish it outside the government, according to interviews with nine of the leading authors.

This is the chapter lead that I'm working with: 

Rajat Panwar, a professor of responsible and sustainable business at Oregon State University who was leading the chapter on nature and the economy, was preparing slides to present his section when he got the news. He said the team he recruited saw, and still sees, the work as a calling to help solve one of its generation’s most pressing problems, the loss of nature and biodiversity.

“The dependence of the economy on nature,” a theme explored in his group’s 6,000-word chapter, “is understated and understudied and underappreciated,” Dr. Panwar said.

We'll see where this might go ...

More: WA scientists plan to publish report on nature that Trump canceled

50 days free access to the cleverly titled "The Aggregate Economic Value of Great Lakes Recreational Fishing Trips"

From the inbox:

Title: The Aggregate Economic Value of Great Lakes Recreational Fishing Trips Reference: JGLR_102529 Dear Prof. Whitehead, We are pleased to let you know that your article The Aggregate Economic Value of Great Lakes Recreational Fishing Trips is now available online with author corrections incorporated. Full citation details, e.g. volume and/or issue number, publication year and page numbers, will be added when the final version becomes available. To help you access and share this work, we have created a Share Link – a personalized URL providing 50 days' free access to your article. Anyone clicking on this link before March 21, 2025 will be taken directly to the latest version of your article on ScienceDirect, which they are welcome to read or download. No sign up, registration or fees are required.

Your personalized Share Link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1kWpX1MRgTx2id

R.I.P. National Nature Assessment

Up until last night, I was working on the National Nature Assessment: 

To better understand the full picture of what is happening with nature, USGCRP is undertaking a National Nature Assessment, which will take stock of U.S. lands, waters, wildlife and the benefits they provide to our economy, health, climate, and national security. The Assessment will also look ahead at how nature might change in the future, and what those changes may mean for our economy and our lives.

The First National Nature Assessment is in the early stages of development and is anticipated to be released in 2026. As with other USGCRP assessments, the National Nature Assessment will draw on expertise from the Federal Government, Indigenous communities, academia, non-profit organizations, and the private sector.

Here is the beginning of the email: 

I am writing with some tough news - the federal authorities have ordered the National Nature Assessment project to be stopped immediately!

Earlier today, just as I was getting started on our presentation for tomorrow, [NNA1 Director Phil Levin] texted and asked me to call him as soon as possible. The moment I saw his message, I had a gut feeling it wasn’t going to be good news – and I was right. But even with all the concerns we have had, nothing could have prepared me for this.

Many of us feared this might happen, but I held onto the belief that as long as our work was grounded in solid science, we would be okay. I thought maybe certain sections, like equity and justice, might be scrutinized, but I never, not for a second, imagined the entire project would be scrapped. To have it all shut down so abruptly is devastating. ...

I was one of about a dozen chapter authors assigned to the Nature and Economy chapter. I was working on Key Topic 2, the one that presented numbers like the contributions of outdoor recreation to GDP and non-market values. Here is the text from the "zero order draft" (aka, the proposal): 

Nature creates, contributes, or supports jobs, provides goods and services, and generates revenue and wellbeing that contribute to the economy. The economic contributions of nature differ across sectors and vary spatially and temporally. This section will assess the historical and current economic contributions of nature across key sectors, which is critical to prioritizing sectoral-specific management and conservation of nature.  

With that as a broad objective, we will:  

• Start with conceptual environmental assets for physical extent (stock) and condition (quality) of ecosystems and the flow of nature into the economy with energy, water and materials and explain/examine changes in production and consumption patterns over time. 
• Explain why the real values and costs of natural capital and ecosystem services have to date not been internalized by economic structures and provide examples of the non-optimal socioeconomic outcomes this led to (i.e. pollinator loss in agriculture).  
• Quantify the contribution of market-based activities in key nature dependent sectors (mining, fishing, forestry, agriculture, bioproducts (ethanol/biomaterials/etc.), energy and nature- based tourism) on economic output (e.gi.e., GDP), jobs and income (broken down by geographic and demographic relevant factors), and exports.  
• Also, briefly describe non-market, non-use, or indirect consumption that is dependent on nature as an input. Assess current externalities of economic activities and future risks to nature, including short-term and long-term changes and how the impacts of these changes may be different across sectors and communities.

Our very rough first draft was completed January 17 and we were going to meet today at noon to talk about how to revise it for public review. 

After the election we had an all author meeting where the leaders of the assessment assured us that the work would go on since the U.S. Global Change Research Program was due to an act of Congress (literally). I was skeptical but kept plugging away. 

Here is what I wrote between the election and inauguration: 

Nonmarket economic values are generally measured as the amount of money people would be willing and able to pay beyond what they actually spend on market goods and services, or consumer surplus. Thousands of studies have been published in the nonmarket valuation literature that assess the value of nature provided by wetlands, groundwater, endangered species, recreation, visibility, air quality, hazardous wastes, and water quality, among other ecosystem services. Examples of these nonmarket values are described below.

Several nonmarket valuation methods have been used to place values on wetlands including revealed and stated preference methods. Across 39 studies, the average annual value of a wetland acre is $915 in 1990 dollars ($2202 in 2024 dollars) (Woodward and Wiu 2001). Wetlands that produce ecosystem services such as biodiversity, water quality and flood protection are more valuable than others (Brander, Florax and Vermaat 2006). These value estimates contain a mix of use and existence values.

Stated preference methods have been used to estimate economic values for groundwater services. In 16 studies the annual household willingness to pay to protect groundwater from contamination ranges is $369 in 1992 dollars ($827 in 2024 dollars) (Brouwer and Neverre 2020). Willingness to pay is higher if the contamination is from nitrates and if cancer is mentioned as a possible health outcome of contamination. Households also have existence values for uncontaminated groundwater.

Air quality is valued for health and visibility. Revealed preference methods have been primarily used to estimate the value of health benefits from air quality in housing markets. The mean willingness to pay from 37 studies for a small reduction in total suspended particulates ranges from $31 to $103 across 18 U.S. cities in 1983 dollars ($98 to $325 in 2024 dollars) (Smith and Huang 1995). In 16 stated preference studies, the mean willingness to pay is $25 to avoid a mild cough and $77 to avoid a severe asthma attack in 1995 dollars ($52 to $159 in 2024 dollars) (Vassanadumrongdee, Matsuoka, and Shirakawa 2004). Visibility at National Parks such as the Grand Canyon is an attribute of an outdoor recreation trip (Smith and Taylor 1996). The mean willingness to pay per month to protect visibility at National Parks in the U.S. from five stated preference studies is $5 in 1990 dollars ($12 in 2024 dollars).

One-hundred thirty-one U.S. recreation studies used revealed preference and stated preference methods to estimate the willingness to pay per person per day for 19 outdoor recreation activities in four regions of the U.S. (Rosenberger and Loomis 2000).  Typical willingness to pay per person per day values are $32 for fishing in the North and $42 for wildlife viewing on the Pacific Coast in 1996 dollars ($64 and $82 in 2024 dollars).  Willingness to pay is higher for river-based recreation and recreation on public lands. Willingness to pay is lower for lake-based recreation. Willingness to pay is higher for big game hunting, waterfowl hunting, fishing and rock climbing.

Fifty-eight studies that use both revealed and stated preference methods have provides willingness to pay estimates for changes in water quality (Van Houtven, Powers and Pattanayak 2007). The range of annual willingness to pay values is $32 to $331 in 2000 dollars ($58 to $604 in 2024 dollars), both for different levels of estuarine water quality improvement in Rhode Island. The average willingness to pay over 131 estimates is $83 in 2000 dollars ($152 in 2024 dollars). The total value of water quality improvement includes both use and existence value with improvements that generate use values having higher willingness to pay values.

Forty-nine studies have used stated preference methods to estimate the economic value of endangered species protection (Richardson and Loomis 2009). Annual household willingness to pay ranges from $8 for protection of the striped shiner (a small fish) to $241 (anadromous fish populations in the state of Washington) in 2006 dollars ($12 and $376 in 2024 dollars). Willingness to pay is higher for marine and bird species. The total value of endangered species includes both use and existence value with species that generate use values having higher willingness to pay values.

References

1. 1. Boyle, Kevin J., Gregory L. Poe, and John C. Bergstrom. "What do we know about groundwater values? Preliminary implications from a meta analysis of contingent-valuation studies." American Journal of Agricultural Economics 76, no. 5 (1994): 1055-1061.
   2. Braden, John B., Xia Feng, and DooHwan Won. "Waste sites and property values: A meta-analysis." Environmental and Resource Economics 50 (2011): 175-201.
   3. Brander, Luke M., Raymond JGM Florax, and Jan E. Vermaat. "The empirics of wetland valuation: a comprehensive summary and a meta-analysis of the literature." Environmental and Resource economics 33 (2006): 223-250.
   4. Brouwer, Roy, and Noémie Neverre. "A global meta-analysis of groundwater quality valuation studies." European Review of Agricultural Economics 47, no. 3 (2020): 893-932.
   5. Richardson, Leslie, and John Loomis. "The total economic value of threatened, endangered and rare species: an updated meta-analysis." Ecological economics 68, no. 5 (2009): 1535-1548.
   6. Rosenberger, Randall S., and John B. Loomis. "Using meta‐analysis for benefit transfer: In‐sample convergent validity tests of an outdoor recreation database." Water Resources Research 36, no. 4 (2000): 1097-1107.
   7. Smith, V.K. and Huang, J.-C. (1995) ‘Can markets value air quality? A meta-analysis of hedonic property value models’, Journal of Political Economy, 103(1), pp. 209–227.
   8. Smith, V. Kerry, and Laura L. Osborne. "Do contingent valuation estimates pass a “scope” test? A meta-analysis." Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 31, no. 3 (1996): 287-301.
   9. Van Houtven, George, John Powers, and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak. "Valuing water quality improvements in the United States using meta-analysis: Is the glass half-full or half-empty for national policy analysis?." Resource and Energy Economics 29, no. 3 (2007): 206-228.
   10. Vassanadumrongdee, Sujitra, Shunji Matsuoka, and Hiroaki Shirakawa. "Meta-analysis of contingent valuation studies on air pollution-related morbidity risks." Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 6 (2004): 11-47.
   11. Woodward, Richard T., and Yong-Suhk Wui. "The economic value of wetland services: a meta-analysis." Ecological economics 37, no. 2 (2001): 257-270.

Here are the authors of Chapter 7 - Nature and the Economy in the U.S.: 

Chapter Lead 

Rajat Panwar, Oregon State University 

Federal Coordinating Lead Author 

Inoussa Boubacar, U.S. Department of Agriculture 

Chapter Authors 

• Pamela M. Bachman, Bayer Crop Science 
• Uris Lantz Baldos, Purdue University 
• Marc Berejka, REI Co-op 
• Brian Buma, Environmental Defense Fund
• Allen Chen, NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center
• Jaana Korhonen, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education 
• Theresa Lieb, Greenbiz 
• Ashley Lowe Mackenzie, University of Hawaii at Manoa 
• Jakki J. Mohr, University of Montana 
• Bonnie J.E. Myers, U.S. Geological Survey
• Stephen Polasky, University of Minnesota 
• Anthony Rogers, California Ocean Science Trust 
• John C. Whitehead, Appalachian State University 

Imagine you were a parent of a student on UNC's waitlist and were, um, not rich

I know what you are thinking, these rich people are getting unfair benefits because they are, well, rich. But, hear me out, I see it as caring about the university so much that you want them to get the top students. And, coincidentally, you happen to have a personal relationship with those students (Are UNC trustees influencing admissions? Updates on applicants are just a text away): 

When a typical student applies to UNC-Chapel Hill, they might submit their application and go months without hearing an update from the university. But for applicants who have ties to members of the university’s Board of Trustees, updates about admission are more readily available — just a text message away in some cases. ...

At universities across the country, including at UNC-Chapel Hill and others in the public UNC System, trustees are generally tasked with overseeing broad, high-level decisions at the university. In the UNC System, trustees are expected to serve as advisers to the university’s chancellor, but are not authorized to direct “matters of administration,” as system President Peter Hans reminded the UNC trustees in a memo earlier this year. ...

At least one trustee, Jennifer Lloyd, wrote a letter of recommendation for a student and submitted it through the official channel for doing so, according to the messages obtained by The N&O. In an undated message to Jen Bowman, associate vice chancellor in the Office of University Development, Lloyd mentioned the letter and appeared to say the student was a “total superstar.” ...

Most of the trustees who made inquiries about applicants did so to Chris McClure, a senior adviser to Chancellor Lee Roberts who is also the Board of Trustees’ secretary. White told The N&O that “all trustees are told to refer any question on admissions” to McClure. It is unclear from the messages obtained by The N&O whether McClure then referred trustees to other officials with their questions. At least one trustee communicated with Rachelle Feldman, the top university official overseeing admissions and enrollment, and at least two trustees, including Lloyd, communicated with either of the top officials overseeing university fundraising — Bowman and Vice Chancellor Michael Andreasen. (It is unclear what role development officials are authorized to play in the admissions process.) ...

In the same undated message exchange to Bowman in which Lloyd mentioned writing a letter of recommendation, Lloyd asked if Bowman would add the student to Bowman’s “tracking.” Lloyd then asked for and received updates throughout the admissions process, with the inquiries stretching from late February to mid-June. (Because many of the messages are heavily redacted, it is sometimes unclear whether Lloyd was inquiring about a student’s application or another issue at the university.) At one point, Lloyd appeared to provide information to Bowman about a student athlete who was seeking admission. ...

The waitlist and applicants’ status on it appear to be the most common themes in trustees’ inquiries. For instance, the head of the Office of University Development, Andreasen, frequently exchanged messages with [Trustee Ramsey] White between late January and mid-May, with the pair appearing to communicate about the status of a student who was placed on the waitlist after applying for admission. In a March 19 message to White, Andreasen said he had “arranged” a “personalized approach,” though it is unclear if that message is about the same student White initially inquired about in January. The approach “starts with a specific issue that needs to be resolved before discussing alternative first year options,” Andreasen wrote to White. “This is going to take a few steps. But the plan is in motion.”

Best did not answer a question from The N&O about the “personalized approach” Andreasen was referencing. White declined to comment on her communications with Andreasen to The N&O. ...

On March 18, [UNC Board of Trustees Chair John] Preyer wrote to McClure, the board secretary, asking for a “status report” on two applicants, including one on the waitlist. On April 4, Preyer and McClure exchanged messages about a student, whom McClure said was on the waitlist and was in the “middle of the pack from [redacted].” Preyer responded that it was “hard” to see the student as “middle of pack unless there is a bunch of Asians there.” ...

On June 24, McClure informed Preyer that there had been “no movement” on the waitlist and that “no one was moved off transfer waitlist.” Preyer responded: “That’s it — no [expletive] off or go to hell?” McClure responded by saying “no” and reiterating the earlier point about the transfer waitlist.

It's heartwarming really, until you imagine you were a parent of a student on UNC's waitlist and were, um, not rich.

Here is a link to UNC's Board of Trustees if you want a visual on the cast of characters: https://bot.unc.edu/

A multinomial vs binary logit for contingent valuation method data question

Let's say I have contingent valuation data for a recreation trip where the dependent variable is y=0 if they would take the trip and y=1 otherwise. The independent variables are the added cost of the trip, a risk factor and whether the respondent takes a day or overnight trip. The logit generates a constant, a<0, and slopes on the cost, risk and overnight variables, b>0, c>0, d<0. Willingness to pay for a day trip with no risk is WTP =-a/b. The y=1 on this dependent variable can be decomposed into 3 categories: (1) stay at home, (2) visit another recreation site, or (3) do something else. I've estimated the binary logit where the 3 categories are collapsed into y=1 and the multinomial where y = 0, 1, 2, and 3. When I constrain the b and c coefficients to be equal across response categories the constant is 62% larger in the multinomial logit. This makes WTP significantly higher in the multinomial logit.

My question is: Why is the constant so much larger in the multinomial logit?

 

New working paper: "Review of Contingent Valuation of Environmental Goods: A Comprehensive Critique. Edited by Daniel McFadden and Kenneth Train (2017): An Update"

Review of Contingent Valuation of Environmental Goods: A Comprehensive Critique. Edited by Daniel McFadden and Kenneth Train (2017): An Update

John C. Whitehead

No 24-17, Working Papers from Department of Economics, Appalachian State University

Abstract: This paper updates the review of the 2017 BP-funded book critical of the contingent valuation method (McFadden and Train, 2017) that was published in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (Whitehead, volume 64, number 2, pp. 710-713, 2018). In that review I noted that an expanded review, with summaries of each chapter, was available upon request. A few requests trickled in but I always responded that the expanded review was not quite ready to share. This was primarily due to a comment that I was writing on a chapter in the book and other on-going work that I wanted to include. That comment has been published and my retort to the reply was posted as a working paper in 2024. Therefore, it is high time to finish the extended review of the book. In this paper I include the original review and add two appendices. One appendix contains the short reviews of each chapter promised in 2018 and another is the 2021 proposal narrative for a forthcoming book that more fully responds to McFadden and Train (2017). 

Date: 2024

Downloads: http://econ.appstate.edu/RePEc/pdf/wp2417.pdf

Finally, we're running government like a business (a bad one)

When there is an increase in demand a business firm will increase output. In the case of a park, you need more employees to make sure the quality of the product stays high. But, no:

Handling throngs of visitors has long been a tough task for a dwindling number of Park Service employees. The task has gotten tougher as visitation has jumped and staffing has shrunk.

The amount of full-time equivalent park employees in the National Park Service fell 20% between the 2010 and 2023 fiscal years, according to federal data. Park visitation rose 16% to 325.5 million over that stretch, and the park service got more land to oversee.

Officials now face difficult choices about how to manage some of America’s most prized parcels of land. In smaller parks, they close visitor centers and bathrooms and stop tours when they don’t have staff to manage them. Travelers say they’ve come to expect reduced services or to spend a good chunk of their day waiting in line at popular parks. Rangers report more vandalism and damage. ...

In larger parks such as Zion, funding from nonprofit partners and labor from volunteers helps fill gaps. How best to staff the park remains an exercise in triage, former employees say. Visitation has increased over 70% since 2010 at Zion. It welcomed more than 4.6 million people in 2023. The number of full-time equivalent employees has dropped about 8% in that stretch, according to federal figures. ...

Visitation to parks accelerated during the Park Service’s centennial celebration that began in 2015, then skyrocketed during peak pandemic years.

Government funding for staffing hasn’t kept up. Republicans and Democrats are at odds over how much more that funding could shrink. The latest funding bill, which passed the House before the summer recess, would eliminate more than 400 positions next year, according to Democrats on Capitol Hill. A spokeswoman for the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee says a recent one-time influx was enough to restore some past staffing cuts and that the number of personnel assigned to parks isn’t directly correlated to budgets.  

The National Park Service manages an appropriated budget of about $3.5 billion when it needs closer to $5 billion for staffing and capital improvements, says Kristen Brengel, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Some of the other problems mentioned in the article are due to crowding and we're not quite ready to ration the popular National Parks to reflect capacity constraints or the realities of reduced government funding. 

Source: America’s National Parks Are Beset by Long Lines, Increased Vandalism (WSJ)

The road to acceptance without revision: Another old journal editor/referee paper story

At one point in my life I thought it would be cool to publish a paper in Human Dimensions of Wildlife. So I sent this paper there in 2002 and received an R&R. Here is the response to the referees:

Response to Referees

The empirical models have undergone significant change. When incorporating the trout fishing, deer hunting, and wildlife watching models into the analysis we began exploring an expanded set of independent variables. This is important because controlling for all possible factors that may affect the responses is necessary when searching for differences in the 1991 and 1996 survey. Also we no longer present willingness to pay estimates for three reasons: (1) the regression models are sufficient to conduct the hypothesis test for temporal reliability, (2) brevity and (3) these estimates are presented in detail in the previous analyses of the Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (FHWAR) data. We have completely rewritten the paper to improve the clarity of our presentation. We address specific comments of each referee below.

Referee #1 (Comments on the HDW Review Comments Sheet)

Paragraph 1: The empirical approach has been simplified to avoid confusion. Our empirical model is the probit to maintain consistency between the previous analyses of these data. An expanded discussion of the censored probit model has been added.

Paragraph 2: We have rewritten the conclusions to increase the clarity of discussion about temporal reliability.

Paragraph 3: We have dropped discussion of the catch per trip as a potential influence on willingness to pay. We have included a discussion of potential omitted variables including demand and supply factors not included in the survey data.

Paragraph 4: The entire paper has been rewritten to improve clarity.

Referee #2 (Comments on white paper)

Paragraphs 4-6: We have focused on the analysis that adjusts the sample for the bid distribution and state of residence. We have discarded from both surveys respondents who took trips outside the state of residence. In the bass fishing, trout fishing, and deer hunting models the average (inflation adjusted) bid amount in the 1991 survey is lower than in the 1996 survey. We have randomly discarded respondents so that the average bid amounts are not statistically different across year of the survey. The adjustments to the sample are described in the “data” section of the paper. Note that the empirical results are robust to samples in which these two adjustments are not made.

Paragraph 7: The word “trends” has been purged from the paper.

Paragraph 8: We have expanded our analysis to include each of the contingent valuation questions that appear in both the 1991 and 1996 FHWAR surveys: bass and trout fishing, deer hunting, and wildlife watching.

Paragraph 9: Appendix 1 and 2 are deleted. We provide more discussion about the survey questions, including the exact text of both the 1991 and 1996 questions, in the “survey background and methods” section of the paper. We focus on the log normal functional form stating that similar results are found for other functional forms of the bid amount.

As you can see, they asked us to do a lot of work, including re-estimation with more dependent variables than just bass and trout fishing. The editor rejected the revision:

The reviewers suggested refocusing the manuscript to highlight how methodological changes in the survey over the years have potentially influenced the findings and conclusions. Both reviewers note specific recommendations in this regard. Because the topic of temporal reliability is important for surveys like FHWAR, I encourage you to revise and resubmit the paper along the lines they suggest. In particular, you will need to include the 2001 FHWAR data.

I used the 1991 and 1996 data in the paper and the editor thought it would be a good idea to update with another year's worth of data. I didn't think so, especially since the 2001 data asked a completely different type of willingness to pay question (open-ended). And, after reading two versions of the paper, the referees thought that the contingent valuation data wasn't worth the trouble. Referee 1:

The strength of the paper lies not in the probit model, but in highlighting how methodology can influence the findings and the conclusions that can be drawn. A probit model might be still be used, but the variables in the model should be methodological variables (type of question asked [dichotomous choice versus iterative bid], recall period, etc.), rather than variables like PUBLIC, PRIVATE, PHOTO, etc.

Referee 2:

My view is that the authors should forget their probit analysis and concentrate on whether there appear to be “conventional” reliability and bias problems that make comparison of 1991 and 1996 likely to be a comparison dominated by bias or error rather than showing validity. ...

My personal view is that there is probably enough in the current paper about changes and incompatibilities that the paper can be easily revamped along the lines suggested. In fact, at one point it seemed to me that the authors were going to study the distributions of responses for 1991 and 1996 and discover that response patterns were such that testing for temporal reliability made no sense.

In short, both referees thought a paper with a different focus would be a good idea and the editor agreed. As it was, the different paper wasn't something that I wanted to write since it was really beyond my research interests. So, I sent the paper to JARE in 2002 (reject), the Journal of Leisure Research (JLR) in 2003 (reject) and Ecological Economics in 2005 (reject). I think it was a JLR referee who was so incensed at our analysis that he threatened to write a comment on the paper if it was published. After a cooling off period, I sent it to Applied Economics in 2005. Here is the editor's response:

We have had difficulty in obtaining timely reports on your paper. Accordingly, I have read it myself and I have also sought the advice of an associate editor. We were both impressed with your paper and I have therefore decided to accept it without further revision for publication in Applied Economics. It is a good piece of applied work.

It was around this time that I may have decided it wasn't such a great idea to engage with a more multi-disciplinary audience.