Benefit Estimates from Forest Recreation: Flexible Functional Forms for WTP Distributions

Data from a large scale discrete choice contingent valuation study are used to estimate the recreational benefits from forest parks in the Republic of Ireland. In particular, we focus on the precision and differences in welfare estimates arising from linear and logarithmic bid transformations vis-à-vis the intermediate Box-cox transformation. We estimate these models on both site-specific and pooled data from referendum contingent valuation responses with one follow-up. We find that flexible forms such as the Box-cox transformation may considerably improve the fit in terms of parameters estimates, but their benefit in terms of more precise welfare estimates require large samples.