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A market for snow: Modeling winter recreation patterns under current and future climate

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  • Parthum, Bryan
  • Christensen, Peter

Abstract

Throughout the winter months across the globe, mountain communities and snow-enthusiasts alike anxiously monitor ever-changing snowpack conditions. We model the behavioral response to this climate amenity by pairing a unique panel of 12 million short-term property rental transactions with daily local weather, daily local snowpack, and daily local snowfall in every major ski resort market across the United States. Matching the spatial and temporal variation in the level of the amenity with that of related market transactions, we derive market-specific demand elasticities, explicitly accounting for substitution, to model recreation patterns throughout a typical season. Lastly, we combine downscaled projections of local snowpack under future climate scenarios to estimate within and across season trends in visitation during mid and late-century conditions. Our model predicts reductions in snow-related visitation of –40% to –60%, almost twice as large as previous estimates suggest. This translates to a lower-bound on the annual willingness to pay to avoid reductions in snowpack between $1.23 billion (RCP4.5) and $2.05 billion (RCP8.5) by the end of the century.

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  • Parthum, Bryan & Christensen, Peter, 2022. "A market for snow: Modeling winter recreation patterns under current and future climate," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:113:y:2022:i:c:s0095069622000195
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2022.102637
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    Cited by:

    1. Gellman, Jacob & Walls, Margaret A. & Wibbenmeyer, Matthew, 2023. "Welfare Losses from Wildfire Smoke: Evidence from Daily Outdoor Recreation Data," RFF Working Paper Series 23-31, Resources for the Future.
    2. Justin Contat & Caroline Hopkins & Luis Mejia & Matthew Suandi, 2023. "When Climate Meets Real Estate: A Survey of the Literature," FHFA Staff Working Papers 23-05, Federal Housing Finance Agency.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Recreation demand; Nonmarket valuation; Climate change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q26 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Recreational Aspects of Natural Resources
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • Z31 - Other Special Topics - - Tourism Economics - - - Industry Studies

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