Potential Policy Options to Improve Sport Fishing in Balbina: A Choice Experiment Analysis

Abstract

This research is developed within the framework of environmental economics, which attempts to value non market goods that provide individuals with specific values that are not elicited through market transactions. Environmental valuation attempts to find an analog to consumer surplus in standard economic approaches. Therefore, obtained monetary measures are not prices, but rather values. The difference is depicted in the graph below, where the price is the minimum amount that people are willing to pay for a good. However, people will only buy a certain good if their willingness to pay is equal or higher to the market's price and in this case the value exceeds the price. The difference between the price and the willingness to pay is called consumer surplus. Through environmental valuation, we obtain measures of willingness to pay in order to find values, rather than prices for specific environmental attributes. . . . In the case of Balbina, we try to measure the value of recreational fishing, which is a direct use value not captured by actual market transactions that generates utility for sport anglers. As Kahn explains, there are essentially three methods that can be used to measure the value of non market goods in environmental economics. . . . Due to its advantages, this study is developed using the choice modeling stated preference technique to elicit non market values for sport fishing in Balbina and the trade-offs involved when considering different policy options to improve the reservoir. [From introductory section]