Allocation, Congestion, and the Valuation of Recreational Resources

ing from all aspects of uniqueness, consider N homogeneous recreational resources under atomistic profitmaximizing management. Local alpine ski clubs can serve as an example. All clubs are assumed to be equidistant from a concentrated population of potential users and are identical to one another with respect to hill conditions and facilities. We further assume that skiers have different tastes concerning the effect of other skiers on their enjoyment, though all agree that the satisfaction derived from a visit is diminished, after a point, by the presence of other consumers and that less crowded clubs therefore offer superior skiing. Access to facilities of any club is closed in the sense that the consumer is not admitted until he has paid the set visit price.4 Each club manager is free to choose among n alternative levels of crowding on his facility. Each of these n crowding This content downloaded from 157.55.39.235 on Fri, 07 Oct 2016 06:04:23 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms