A park by any other name: National Park designation as a natural experiment in signaling

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2006.02.001 Byline: Stephan Weiler Abstract: Site designation conveys a unique set of signals to information-constrained potential visitors. Changes in designation thus offer natural experiments to evaluate the signaling importance of names. This paper estimates the visitation effect of the conversion of National Monuments to National Parks. Such conversions generate persistent significant impacts, indicating that designation signals are indeed credible. These signals are particularly important to information-constrained distant national visitors compared to more proximate state and metro populations who have better information about nearby sites. Furthermore, park visits appear to be economical yet naturally rewarding inferior goods, as visitation increases when incomes stagnate. Author Affiliation: Center for the Study of Rural America, Federal Reserve Bank, 925 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64198 Article History: Received 24 August 2005; Revised 7 February 2006