Book Description

Despite the obvious importance of the Oregon big game resource to Oregon citizens, economic data regarding the actual magnitude of net and gross values have been lacking. Thus an attempt has been made in this thesis to supply the missing information by estimating the gross economic value and by formulating a demand model from which the net economic value of the Oregon big game resource can be derived. The gross economic value of the Oregon big game resource, including both the investment in hunting and related equipment and hunting trip expenses, was obtained from two questionnaires mailed to a random sample of Oregon big hunters during the summer and fall of 1968. It was estimated that hunter families averaged about $239 per year for hunting and associated equipment. A total investment by all Oregon hunters of $44.6 million in 1968 was estimated. It was also estimated that hunter families averaged about $118.70 on big game hunting trips during 1968. Total big game hunting trip expenses for all Oregon hunters were estimated to be $18.6 million. Thus, combining investment in hunting and associated equipment with total trip expenses gave a total estimated expenditure of $63.2 million by Oregon big game hunters in 1968. Net economic value (which is defined in this study as the potential value of the resource if the opportunity to hunt big game animals were a marketable commodity) was sensitive to the specification of the demand model employed. In this study, the two most important explanatory variables were average trip expenses and distance to the hunting region. As compared to traditional distance zone estimation procedures, estimation based upon individual observations was much more efficient, and better separated the monetary versus the non monetary costs of distance. Several algebraic forms of the demand equation were fitted for each of the five hunting regions of Oregon. However, best overall results were obtained from the exponential demand function, fitted by logarithmic transformation, but corrected for bias in terms of the real numbers. One measure of net economic value (net revenue to a non discriminating monopolist) gave an estimated value of the Oregon big game resource of about $4 million. However, consumer surplus, which is more generally accepted by economists, gave an estimated net4 economic value of about $11 million for the Oregon big game resource in 1968. The $11 million net economic value is considered to be a conservative estimate since expenditures for hunting and related equipment were not included. It is thought that the estimation of net economic values for each of the five hunting regions makes the study more useful from the viewpoint of big game management and resource allocation in Oregon.