In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, many evacuees from the Gulf region began the difficult process of deciding whether to rebuild or restart elsewhere. We examine pre-Katrina Gulf residents' decision to return to the postdisaster Gulf region—which we call the “return migration” decision. We...

The city of New Orleans suffered extensive damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Rebuilding involves decisions on investment in protective measures. An exhaustive list of protective measures has been studied in planning documents, with public comment solicited in town hall meetings. In this...

In this paper we measure the recreational economic benefits of the for-hire recreational fishery in the coastal region of North Carolina. We estimate a single trip random utility model for primary purpose and secondary purpose anglers with data from a field survey of charter and head-boat...

Natural or coral reefs represent extremely valuable ecosystems supporting an estimated 25 percent of all marine life, yet recent reports suggest that 75 percent of the world’s natural reefs are under threat from both natural and human stressors. In areas such as Key West, Florida, that boasts...

In this paper we use data from an internet-based survey and estimate the benefits of an oyster consumption safety policy with the contingent valuation method. In addition to providing a context specific estimate of willingness-to-pay for oyster safety, we consider two unresolved issues in the...

North American cities have long encouraged redevelopment of their downtown cores to counteract the flight of residents and business to the suburbs in the postwar period. Building subsidized arenas and stadiums for professional sports teams downtown became common in the 1960s. In recent years,...

The combination and joint estimation of revealed and stated preference (RP/SP) data approach to examining consumer preferences to relevant policy-based measures typically fail to account for heterogeneity in the data by considering behavior of the average individual. However, in policy-based...

Traditional revealed and stated preference (RP/SP) models consider a typical individual’s behavioral responses to various policy-based information treatments. For some costbenefit applications in which resource managers are concerned with responses from a representative individual, this is...