Referendum style willingness to pay questions have
been used to estimatepassive use values. This referendum question format
method may beproblematic for many reasons, including the statistical
techniques used toestimate willingness to pay from discrete responses.
This paper comparesa number of parametric, semi-nonparametric and
nonparametric estimationtechniques using data collected from US households
regarding Federalprotection of endangered fish species.The advantages and
disadvantagesof the various statistical models used are explored. A
hypothesis test forstatistical equality among estimation techniques is
performed using ajackknife bootstrapping method. When the equality test is
applied, themodeling techniques do show significant differences in some
possiblecomparisons, but only those that are nonparamentric. This can lead
toconflicting interpretations of what the data show. Resource managers
andpolicy analysts need to use caution when interpreting results until
anindustry standard can be developed for estimating willingness to pay
fromclosed ended questions. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001
