TESTING TRANSFERABILITY OF RECREATION DEMAND MODELS ACROSS REGIONS - A STUDY OF CORPS OF ENGINEER RESERVOIRS

This research tests the interchangeability of two specifications of tr avel cost demand models for recreation at U.S. Army Corps of Engineer reservoirs in Arkansas, California, and Tennessee/Kentucky. Statistica l tests of coefficient equality for both nonlinear least squares and H eckman sample selection models suggest rejecting a transferable model among all three regions. However, the nonlinear least squares models i n Arkansas and Tennessee were similar enough to fail to reject the hyp othesis of equal coefficients at the 0.01 significance level. Even so, interchanging the Arkansas and Tennessee nonlinear least squares coef ficients produces visitor use and total benefit estimates that are mor e than 100% too high. However, interchanging coefficients does provide reasonably close estimates of the average consumer surplus per trip f or both states using the nonlinear least squares model (+/-5% to 10%). This is due to similarity of the price coefficients in the two models . Thus a more limited form of transferability which focuses on average benefit per day, rather than on predicting total use and total benefi ts, appears promising.