Title: Correcting On-site Sampling Bias: A New Method with Application to Recreation Demand Analysis

Speaker: Ju-Chin Huang, University of New Hampshire

Time: May 25th, 2017 13:30–15:00

Venue: Conference Room 106B, Zhonghui Building (College of Economics, JNU)

About the speaker:

Ju-Chin Huang is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on methodologies and applications of non-market valuation. She has worked on a wide variety of topics including economic valuation of water quality, air quality, highway noise, recreation sites, solid waste management, hydrographic surveys, and food risk perceptions. As results of her research, she has published articles in both general and field journals such as Economics Letters, Environmental and Resource Economics, Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Journal of Political Economy, Land Economics, Marine Resource Economics, Risk Analysis, and Southern Economic Journal.

Abstract:

Collecting data via on-site surveys is convenient and can be cost effective. However, the on-site sampling scheme oversamples frequent site visitors and omits non-visitors, which can result in bias and inconsistent estimation of population parameters. A common empirical approach to addressing the sampling issues is to make adjustments directly into the assumed population distribution. We propose an alternative empirical strategy that utilizes the sample distribution, and treats endogenous stratification and truncation separately. Monte Carlo simulation shows merits of the proposed empirical strategy. A case study of recreation demand for coastal beaches using on-site survey data is presented.