Recent Highlights
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Managing No-Shows in Public Resource Allocation: The Economics of Campground Reservations.
Low prices, limited capacity and increased interest in outdoor recreation contribute to intense competition for public campsites in the United States. Yet, users and park managers report high vacancy rates due to unused reservations or “no-shows.” I develop a simple model for the campground reservation, cancellation and no-show decisions. I numerically simulate pricing policies at a hypothetical but representative park. When capacity constraints are binding, the cancellation fees charged by many parks increase no-shows and decrease consumer surplus. In contrast, modestly higher prices and no-show fees dramatically reduce no-shows and increase social surplus 8 to 15 percent. However, these policies create different distributional effects. Higher prices raise revenue but decrease consumer surplus and discourage reservations from lower income users when income is positively correlated with trip utility. No-show fees increase consumer surplus and do not materially affect the income distribution of users. The optimal no-show fee, equal to the lost consumer surplus from the marginal no-show, maximizes consumer surplus and increases social surplus 8.5 percent.
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Online Reservation Systems, Buying Frenzies and Equitable Access to Public Lands.
Rationed access is an important tool to promote sustainable use of public lands. However, online reservation systems can lead to "buying frenzies" when low prices create excess demand. Using transaction-level data for river permits in the United States sold both by reservation-system buying frenzy and lottery, I show successful frenzy buyers reside in wealthier zip codes than those selected at random. This effect increases with congestion and leads to an unequal distribution of consumption benefits where high-income zip codes receive 25 percent more recreational trip value. These effects can undermine park managers’ efforts to provide equitable access through low fees.
Working Papers
Reservation Policies and Equity in National Park Access.
Publications
Online Reservation Systems, Buying Frenzies and Equitable Access to Public Lands.
Managing No-Shows in Public Resource Allocation: The Economics of Campground Reservations.
The Role of Modal Substitution in Rebound Effects Within US Freight Transportation (With James Bushnell).
Decline in traffic congestion increased accident severity in the wake of COVID-19 (With Daniel Kaffine and Leah Kaffine).
The Value of Rarity: Evidence from a Collectible Good.
Food vs. Fuel? Impacts of petroleum shipments on agricultural prices. (With James Bushnell and Aaron Smith).
Who (Else) Benefits from Electricity Deregulation? Coal prices, natural gas and price discrimination. (With Ian Lange).
When Should Carpools in HOV Lanes be Encouraged? (With Daniel Kaffine).
Strategic Policy Choice in State-Level Regulation: The EPA's Clean Power Plan (With James Bushnell, Stephen Holland and Christopher Knittel).
When is Increasing Consumption of Common Property Optimal? Sorting, Congestion and Entry in the Commons (With Daniel Kaffine).
Some Inconvenient Truths About Climate Change Policy: The Distributional Impacts of Transportation Policies (With Stephen Holland, Christopher Knittel and Nathan Parker).
Unintended Consequences of Transportation Carbon Policies (With Stephen Holland, Christopher Knittel and Nathan Parker).
Getting Green with Solar Subsidies: Evidence from the California Solar Initiative (With Molly Podolefsky).
Carpooling and Driver Responses to Fuel Price Changes: Evidence from Traffic Flows in Los Angeles (With Antonio Bento and Daniel Kaffine).
Market Power in the Rail Transport of Fuel Ethanol.
Greenhouse Gas Reductions Under Low Carbon Fuel Standards? (With Stephen Holland and Christopher Knittel).
Evidence of a Shift in the Short-Run Price Elasticity of Gasoline Demand (With Christopher Knittel and Daniel Sperling).