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December 25, 2008

Research Paper du Jour: Economics of Ice

While the title of this research paper is much more amusing than the contents, it's still  interesting as some work at the confluence of externalities and sports science.

Estimating the Economic Value of Ice Climbing in Hyalite Canyon: An Application of Travel Cost Count Data Models that Account for Excess Zeros

Abstract:    
Recently, the sport of ice climbing has seen a drastic increase in popularity. This paper uses the travel cost method to estimate the demand for ice climbing in Hyalite Canyon, Montana, one of the premier ice climbing venues in North America. Access to Hyalite and other ice climbing destinations have been put at risk due to liability issues, public land management agendas, and winter road conditions. To this point, there has been no analysis on the economic benefits of ice climbing. In addition to the novel outdoor recreation application, this study applies econometric methods designed to deal with "excess zeros" in the data. Depending upon model specification, per person per trip values are estimated to be in the range of $36 to $85.

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