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User fees, equity and the benefits of public outdoor recreation services

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  • Huhtala, Anni
  • Pouta, Eija

Abstract

The paper addresses the question of who benefits from public recreation areas. Employing a set of survey data from users and nonusers of state-owned recreation and conservation areas in Finland, we derive two measures for distributional analysis. The first, the income elasticity of willingness to pay for recreation services, indicates that public provision of recreation benefits lower-income groups more than higher-income groups. The second, a welfare measure including efficiency loss, reveals ambiguous impacts depending on the level of the fee implemented. Low fee levels decrease recreation visits among lower-income users, whereas high fees reduce the welfare level of higher-income users in particular.
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  • Huhtala, Anni & Pouta, Eija, 2008. "User fees, equity and the benefits of public outdoor recreation services," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 117-132, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:foreco:v:14:y:2008:i:2:p:117-132
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    Cited by:

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    2. Voltaire, Louinord, 2012. "Effet d’une taxe et d’un droit d’entrée sur les consentements à payer des touristes pour de nouvelles réserves naturelles dans le golfe du Morbihan," Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, Editions NecPlus, vol. 92(02), pages 183-209, October.
    3. Oviedo, José L. & Caparrós, Alejandro & Ruiz-Gauna, Itziar & Campos, Pablo, 2016. "Testing convergent validity in choice experiments: Application to public recreation in Spanish stone pine and cork oak forests," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 130-148.
    4. Anni Huhtala & Eija Pouta, 2009. "Benefit Incidence of Public Recreation Areas—Have the Winners Taken Almost All?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(1), pages 63-79, May.
    5. Huhtala, Anni, 2010. "Income effects and the inconvenience of private provision of public goods for bads: The case of recycling in Finland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1675-1681, June.
    6. Louinord Voltaire & Abdelhak Nassiri & Denis Bailly & Jean Boncoeur, 2011. "Effet d’une taxe et d’un droit d’entrée sur les consentements à payer des touristes pour de nouvelles réserves naturelles dans le golfe du Morbihan," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement, INRA Department of Economics, vol. 92(2), pages 183-209.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer surplus Income Income elasticity Willingness to pay;

    JEL classification:

    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • Q26 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Recreational Aspects of Natural Resources

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