Abstract

Sales of deer licenses, one of the most important revenue sources for wildlife management at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), have been declining for a decade. To increase its revenue, the IDNR is considering introducing a new lifetime deer license for sale. This license would allow hunters to harvest deer (and possibly other species) each year for the rest of their lives in exchange for a relatively large up-front fee. The forward-looking nature of the decision to buy a lifetime license means hunters' choice behavior is necessarily dynamic. Prior work estimates preferences for long-lived, durable goods using standard discrete choice experiments underpinned by static models. We derive a dynamic discrete choice model of lifetime license purchases. Our model informs the design of a novel, dynamic discrete choice experiment, generating data that allows us to consistently estimate individuals’ forward-looking preferences for lifetime hunting licenses. We use our model to estimate the price of lifetime licenses that maximizes IDNR revenues.

Comments

This is the author accepted manuscript of Yusun Kim, Carson Reeling, Nicole J.O. Widmar, John G. Lee, Estimating a model of forward-looking behavior with discrete choice experiments: The case of lifetime hunting license demand, Journal of Choice Modelling, Volume 47, 2023,100414. Copyright Elsevier, this version is made available CC-BY-NC-ND, and the version of record is available at DOI: 10.1016/j.jocm.2023.100414.

Keywords

Discrete choice experiment; Dynamic discrete choice; Recreation demand; Stated preference; Wildlife

Date of this Version

5-5-2023

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