ABSTRACT
Studies related to the assessment of the non-market values of culture typically employ methods based on stated or revealed preferences. In this paper, we implement a new emerging non-market valuation technique, namely the life satisfaction approach. In particular, we quantify in monetary values, the additional utility that people benefit from cultural experiences, as well as the additional disutility suffered by cultural consumers specifically due to the closure of cultural organisations during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the pandemic provides a unique setting. Using a survey conducted in Denmark in the spring of 2020, we confirm the link between cultural participation and well-being by estimating a life satisfaction model, instrumenting for both income and cultural participation to avoid simultaneity problems. Furthermore, we show that fervent cultural consumers have experienced an additional welfare loss during the lockdown period, controlling for all other known life dimensions affected by the pandemic. Our results aim to highlight the role of cultural participation in sustaining life satisfaction and, consequently, to support a well-being evidence-based cultural policy that facilitate cultural accessibility as a mean to increase the individual well-being.
ABSTRACT
Protected Areas, the mainstay of biodiversity conservation, are facing an unprecedented threat of being exploited, making their conservation not only crucial but also urgent. As the looming threat does not leave scope for expensive and time-consuming surveys, this paper intends to add to the existing literature and to the cause of biodiversity conservation by undertaking the first ever multinational Meta-Analysis of National Park (NP) valuation studies in South and South East Asia. The relative importance of study-, site-, and socioeconomic characteristics is estimated through a meta-regression and suggestions for redesigning pricing strategies to capture the unrealized consumer surplus are presented. Key results highlight the importance of the place of residence, area of the NP, and GDP per capita in explaining variation in NP value. Furthermore, taking note of the havoc wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the study highlights the need to diversify the funding base for NP management in order to ensure sustainable financing by presenting country-specific examples.
ABSTRACT
Botanic gardens are defined by their mission to maintain living plant collections for scientific research, conservation, display and education. This mission represents the potential ecosystem services that botanic gardens aim to produce, with display and education specifically regarding recreational ecosystem services (RES). Visitors must directly experience botanic gardens to transform these potential RES into real benefits, yet the public may not be interested in studying plants during their leisure time. Thus, botanic gardens turn to events to attract visitors. The objective of this study is to estimate the RES benefits created by a botanic garden event and profile the visitors that it brings into the garden. To do so, a questionnaire was distributed at the Zagara plant festival, held in Spring 2021 at the Palermo University Botanic Garden in Sicily (Italy). Respondents are local, young to middle-aged, mostly female, well-educated, upper to middle class and not accompanying children. Most came to the Zagara to observe, admire or purchase plants. Through the zonal Travel Cost Method (TCM), visitors' marginal consumer surplus is estimated to be 6.16 € and the event's total recreational value is estimated to be 26,464.21 €. The study took place during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic and responses also indicate that the Zagara filled consequential visitor needs for outdoor social occasions. This study contributes to the literature on RES benefit valuation by applying the well-accepted TCM to the unexplored subject of special events in botanic gardens with the aim of supporting management decisions. Management implications •Botanic gardens are defined by their living plant collections, yet they are also important for human wellbeing;•Events bring many visitors into botanic gardens, and are responsible for creating social benefits in the form of recreational ecosystem services;•Garden managers often lack the resources to carry out complicated valuation procedures, but online survey and mapping platforms have made the zonal travel cost method a direct way to estimate the recreational benefits produced by an event, and understand who benefits;•Such valuations are necessary for gardens to plan events to increase social welfare, optimize ecosystem services and improve inclusiveness.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 outbreak resulted in unprecedented restrictions on citizen's freedom of movement as governments moved to institute lockdowns designed to reduce the spread of the virus. While most out-of-home leisure activities were prohibited, in England the lockdown rules allowed for restricted use of outdoor greenspace for the purposes of exercise and recreation. In this paper, we use data recorded by Google from location-enabled mobile devices coupled with a detailed recreation demand model to explore the welfare impacts of those constraints on leisure activities. Our analyses reveals evidence of large-scale substitution of leisure time towards recreation in available greenspaces. Indeed, despite the restrictions the economic value of greenspace to the citizens of England fell by only £150 million over lockdown. Examining the outcomes of counterfactual policies we find that the imposition of stricter lockdown rules would have reduced welfare from greenspace by £1.14 billion. In contrast, more relaxed lockdown rules would have delivered an aggregate increase in the economic value of greenspace equal to £1.47 billion.