1.
What is the difference between valuation
and economic impacts?
In a very small nutshell, valuation answers the question is society better
or worse off as the result of changing a policy. Commercial harvester value
is essentially their profits and angler value can be thought of as angler profit:
that is what the angler gets to keep above and beyond what they paid to go
fishing. Economic impacts should never be used to determine if an increase
in the size limit or a change in allocation should be made. Instead economic
impacts trace the flow of expenditures in an economy and do two things: demonstrate
the current size and therefore importance of recreational fishing and, when
a policy change occurs they track how the policy changes expenditure patterns
defining who specifically wins or looses as a result of a policy. We are also
mandated by law to estimate both value and economic impacts.
2.
How often does NMFS collect expenditure
data?
Below is the list of expenditure surveys NMFS has conducted to date:
Survey
Year
Northeast 1998, 2000 (trip expenditures only)
Southeast 1999, 2004 (trip expenditures only)
Pacific Coast 2000
Caribbean 2004
Nationwide 2006 (AK, TX, and HI included for the first time)
3.
How often does NMFS collect valuation
data?
Below is the list of valuation surveys NMFS has conducted to date:
Survey Year
Northeast 1994, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004
Southeast 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003
Pacific Coast 1998, 2001
Caribbean 2004
4.
How can we produce defensible estimates
of value, effort shifts, and economic
impacts for particular species of fish?
We have to rely on stated preference choice experiments (SPCE), or conjoint
surveys, to gather this data. We have conducted a number of these surveys,
see list below, and we have pledged to cover all species covered by a management
plan as soon as possible. We have picked this methodology because we don’t
have a time series of economic data, and even in areas where we have a short
time series, there is not enough variation in the regulations over those years
to estimate relationships.
Survey Year
Alaska 2000
Northeast 2000 (summer flounder)
Southeast 2004 (grouper, red snapper, king mackerel, & dolphin)
OR and WA 2006 (planned to cover rockfish, salmon, & halibut)
Alaska 2007 (planned to cover rockfish, salmon, & halibut)
California 2008 (planned to cover rockfish, salmon, & halibut)
5.
How can the recreational economic data
be used to value environmental damages?
There are two components of value lost when there is an oil spill or some other
environmental damage: use value and non-use or existence value. Our valuation
models quantify the value of recreational access, which is a large part of
the use value when a spill shuts down a beach or other coastal area. Often,
our data is the only periodically collected data available to look at use values.
6.
Can we get access to the unpublished
study on comparing expenditures between
private and public access?
There was never a report generated. The results mentioned in the review refer
to an analysis of Southern California highly migratory species angler expenditures.
A handful of expenditure questions were collected during the RDD survey which
also asked if the angler’s last trip was from a private marina. We compared
the means, across small sample sizes, and could not reject that the mean expenditures
between public and private access anglers were the same. Certainly more comprehensive
work needs to be done in this area.
7.
The reviewers recognize current survey
weaknesses, but say those weaknesses
are not severe. Please explain because
that seems to contradict with the weaknesses
the reviewers list.
The main weakness being referred to is the endogenous stratification issue,
which is a problem for all onsite surveys. Endogenous stratification means
that a particular group is being under (over) sampled because of the sampling
process itself. In this case, the survey was designed to be a random sample
of trips, which means more avid anglers are intercepted more frequently. This
bias does not impact trip expenditure estimates at all and we weight the problems
out of the annual expenditure data using a CIE-approved method. For our valuation
models, we need information about sampling rates relative to the total pressure
at a sight, information the current MRFSS can’t provide. Fortunately,
while better information improves our economic models, the impact of not having
the information is slight. That is, the changes in the estimate would not be
enough to change the conclusions of the analysis and are, therefore, considered
not severe. The MRFSS plans to upgrade their sampling procedures in ways that
will also help our examination of this bias. We have not explored the severity
of bias introduced by not including private access or night fishing, other
weaknesses identified by the NRC.
8.
The industry sees flat lining participation,
yet the report states that there will
be “steady, long run growth in
marine recreational fishing.” What
is the real story?
The MRFSS data has the long term trend in participation and effort increasing.
The data shows a sharp drop in participants in 2002, down nearly 1.5 million,
but it has been steadily increasing since and it is nearly back up to this
2001 level. There was a similar drop in effort in 2002 and it has not recovered
to 2001 levels. This describes national level estimates of participation and
effort, which may disguise local trends. However, the reviewer’s claims
were for the nation as a whole. If coastal population continues to increase,
it stands to reason that the long term trends in effort and participation in
the MRFSS data will likely be supported into the future.
9.
Can the economics surveys use a license
frame and still produce valid samples?
Yes and we have used license frames to conduct our surveys. The current expenditure
survey uses license frames in Oregon, Washington, California, Texas, Alaska,
and the highly migratory species permit database. With regards to producing
a valid sample, as long as a random sample of licensees is drawn, it can be
a valid sample.
10.
Sample clustering has been identified
as a problem. How will the economics
survey deal with it?
The MRFSS has plans to improve their sampling strategy, including how they
handle clustering. Whatever improvement they make will be adopted by the economics
survey where possible.
11.
How can a model account for unobserved
site characteristics?
In our models, we can include an extra variable that represents everything
at that site that we have not measured or observed. When we estimate that model,
we have therefore accounted for the variation in the modeled variable explained
by those site specific characteristics that went unobserved. Using this approach
one cannot then determine what contribution individual unobserved characteristics
contributed but can see the effect of all the characteristics combined. Certainly
this is inferior to having explicit information on site characteristics, but
it is an acceptable method to capture the effect of these characteristics without
the expense of gathering the specific information.
12.
How are we going to estimate how angler
effort changes when regulations change?
Again, we have adopted SPCE surveys to address the need to predict effort shifts
and have conducted a number of surveys to estimate these relationships. One
of the reviewers, Ragnar Arnason, mentioned there is still a lot to be learned
about this methodology and we endeavor to explore improvements in our SPCEs
as a tool for managers.
13.
What level of spatial resolution is there
in the economic impact data and can it
be used for community impact analysis?
The data is collected to provide estimates at the state level stratified by
resident status and fishing mode. That is not to say that we couldn’t
provide estimates at the community level by applying a state average to community
effort and participation, but MRFSS does not publish effort or participation
estimates at the community level.
14.
Is the opportunity cost of an angler’s
time accounted for in your models?
Our valuation models do incorporate opportunity cost, but only for those individuals
that take time off work without pay to participate. This is a common methodology
in the literature, albeit a conservative approach since those on paid leave
are essentially being paid for their time. For those taking time of work without
pay, we include their travel time and time onsite multiplied by their current
wage rate to get this value.
15.
Can we produce “real-time” economic
estimates?
Currently, we run our expenditure surveys every five years and our valuation
surveys as often as we can afford to conduct them. Both the valuation estimates,
expenditure estimates, and economic impacts can be updated using MRFSS effort
and participation estimates every wave, which are available 45 days after the
close of each wave.
16. What
information do we need to make allocation decisions
using economics so that all sectors are compared
apples to apples?
As discussed above, value estimates must be used to decide the most efficient
allocation of the public fishery resource. Ideally, allocation decisions must
be made based on who has the higher value for the next fish. On the harvester
side, this includes their economic profits denominated by numbers or pounds
of fish and on the recreational side, the anglers’ willingness to pay
for that next fish. For more information on this topic, see: Edwards, S.F.
1994. An economic guide to allocation of fish stocks between commercial and
recreational fisheries. NOAA Technical Report. National Marine Fisheries Service. |
