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ABSTRACT
The long-run sustainable management of recreational fisheries in North America relies on license revenues to pay for conservation. This article examined the effect of changing license prices on purchases using time series data from Pennsylvania. I measured the effect of prices on yearly sales for three types of licenses: resident annual, nonresident annual, and 3-day tourist licenses. Results showed that demand is price inelastic for the annual licenses but slightly price elastic for the 3-day tourist license. An across-the-board increase in all license prices would not be an efficient way to increase revenues. In Pennsylvania, increasing the current price of the 3-day tourist license would likely decrease participation and revenues.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Kangil Lee and Taylor Welniak for research assistance. This work was supported in part by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.
Notes
1. Climate could affect participation directly through temperature (Boyer, Melstrom, & Sanders, Citation2017) and indirectly through changes in habitat conditions and hence fishing quality (Esselman, Stevenson, Lupi, Riseng, & Wiley, Citation2015).
2. However, it should be noted that the hypothesis that demand for the 3-day tourist license is price unit elastic—that is, the elasticity was equal to one—cannot be rejected (p-value = 0.769). Thus, it is possible that demand for the 3-day tourist license is unit elastic. However, we can reject the hypothesis that demand for the 3-day license has been unit elastic since 1989 (p < .001).
