A while back I tweeted:
Even though I only got 3 likes on the Tweet (sad face emoji), I've been thinking about how I might use alternative abstracting formats as I write, and read, papers. So today I decided to try it with a 'recent' paper I've been wanting to read. Here's my attempt at writing an abstract/summary of a paper in medical journal style.
NOTE: This is my attempt to summarize someone else's publication. All stupid mistakes and misinterpretations are mine and NOT the authors of the paper.
Who knows, if I like how it turns out, and I can find the time, I might make Abstract Mondays a regular thing.
Title: Decoupling the Value of Leisure Time from Labor Market Returns in Travel Cost Models
Author(s): Patrick Lloyd-Smith, Joshua K. Abbott, Wiktor Adamowicz, and Daniel Willard
Journal: Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 2019 6:2, 215-242
Objective: To improve the measurement of the value of people's leisure time by allowing for different values for each individual derived from a stated preference survey.
Background: The opportunity cost of leisure time is a key piece in calculating a 'price' for travel (the travel cost). Traditional methods of estimating/calculating the value of time rely on labor market theory resulting in individuals trading off labor and leisure at the wage rate, or some fraction thereof. Measurement error (self-reported income), non-labor income, labor-force non-participation, and individual differences call into question the link between fixed wage rates (or proportions thereof) and the opportunity cost of time. Improved methods are needed to accurately reflect the value of time in travel cost models.
Methods: Stated preference questions are added to a recreational fishing survey to assess how respondents react to hypothetical trade-offs between time and money. Respondents are offered hypothetical payments for participation in hypothetical activities that take time: participation in an 8-hour focus group, and work sorting paper files. The responses to the hypothetical money/time trade-offs are used to structurally estimate and individual-specific marginal utility of income in a Kuhn-Tucker site choice/quantity recreation demand model. Results are compared to standard methods of valuing time at a fraction of the wage rate. The value of price and site quality changes are calculated using traditional and new methods.
Results: The stated preference method produces an average value of time of "$35 (median $31) with a range of $11-$112" per hour. The traditional wage-based method produced estimates of "$38 (median $34) with a range of $0–$429". Traditional methods typically use 1/3 the wage rate to allow for non-marginal trade-offs between labor and leisure. The correlation between the stated-preference estimates, and the 1/3 wage rate estimates is 0.34. Kuhn-Tucker demand system estimates show "relatively modest" improvements in model fit using the stated preference value of time estimates. The welfare impacts of three policy scenarios are estimated: A price increase, and two fishing site closure scenarios. The use of stated-preference value of time vs the fractional wage causes little difference in welfare impacts for the price change scenario. The stated-preference approach leads to a 38% and 43% increase in the estimated welfare loss dues to Summer and Fall site closures compared to the fractional wage approach. Using the full wage (90% of wage rather than 33% of wage) yields average results closer to the stated-preference approach, but does not fully explain the difference.
Conclusions: Using stated-preference to elicit the value of time introduces flexibility and captures heterogeneity in the value of time across individuals that traditional wage-based approaches fail to capture at a relatively low additional survey cost.
