Reconciling Contemporary Spatial Models of Recreational Fishing Site Choices and Endogenous Fishing Success

The demand for, and economic value of, recreational fishing is typically estimated using the travel cost method. The travel cost method uses travel costs to potential fishing sites as a proxy for the price of the fishing sites and then establishes a demand relationship between the prices and qualities of sites and number of trips to a site (i.e., fishing effort at a site). The demand relationship is then utilized to estimate economic values for the site or for changes in site quality. When there are many possible fishing sites and when demand and value are to be linked to site qualities such as catch rates, random utility models (RUM) are typically used. RUMs are well suited to developing detailed spatially explicit models of demand and value. However, for recreational fisheries, typical RUM applications treat catch rates at fishing sites as exogenous to angler abilities and to aggregate fishing effort. Recent advances in treating endogenous site variables in RUMs are reviewed for their potential as possible solutions to endogenous features such as catch rates.