Marketing, congestion, and demarketing in Utah’s National Parks

2020 ◽  
pp. 135481662093972
Author(s):  
Tatiana Drugova ◽  
Man-Keun Kim ◽  
Paul M Jakus
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Environmental Pressures ◽  
Visitor Management ◽  
The Us ◽  
Tourism Experience ◽  
Park Service ◽  
National Trends ◽  
Alternative Sites

Utah’s Mighty 5 ad campaign was designed to attract out-of-state visitors to southern Utah’s five National Parks (NPs). Using the synthetic control method, we find the campaign to have contributed to rapid visitation growth at Arches, Canyonlands, and Capitol Reef NPs. No ad campaign effect was found for Bryce Canyon and Zion NPs, which implies that recent increased visitation at these parks has been driven by the national trends and not the Mighty 5 promotion. Arches, Bryce Canyon, and Zion currently suffer from excess demand (congestion), and the US National Park Service is actively engaged in visitor management efforts to mitigate the environmental pressures associated with overvisitation. The state has responded to congestion by crafting a new “demarketing” campaign to provide a more tailored tourism experience aimed at increasing the value of a visit and diverting potential tourists to high-quality alternative sites selected to match visitor interests.

From Competition to Cooperation: A History of Canada–US National Park Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Young ◽  
Alan MacEachern ◽  
Lary Dilsaver
Keyword(s):  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Us ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Settler Societies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Flow Of Information ◽  
The Relationship

This essay explores the evolving international relationship of the two national park agencies that in 1968 began to offer joint training classes for protected-area managers from around the world. Within the British settler societies that dominated nineteenth century park-making, the United States’ National Park Service (NPS) and Canada’s National Parks Branch were the most closely linked and most frequently cooperative. Contrary to campfire myths and nationalist narratives, however, the relationship was not a one-way flow of information and motivation from the US to Canada. Indeed, the latter boasted a park bureaucracy before the NPS was established. The relationship of the two nations’ park leaders in the half century leading up to 1968 demonstrates the complexity of defining the influences on park management and its diffusion from one country to another.

scholarly journals Vaccination Diffusion and Incentive: Empirical Analysis of the US State of Michigan

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hwang Kim ◽  
Vithala R. Rao
Keyword(s):  
Causal Inference ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
City Government ◽  
Incentive Scheme ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Vaccination Rates ◽  
The Us ◽  
The City

Vaccination is the only way to reach herd immunity and help people return to normal life. However, vaccination rollouts may not be as fast as expected in some regions due to individuals' vaccination hesitation. For this reason, in Detroit, Michigan, the city government has offered a $50 prepaid card to people who entice city residents to visit vaccination sites. This study examined vaccination rates in the US using Detroit, Michigan, as the setting. It sought to address two issues. First, we analyzed the vaccination diffusion process to predict whether any region would reach a vaccination completion level that ensures herd immunity. Second, we examined a natural experiment involving a vaccination incentive scheme in Detroit and discovered its causal inference. We collected weekly vaccination data and demographic Census data from the state of Michigan and employed the Bass model to study vaccination diffusion. Also, we used a synthetic control method to evaluate the causal inference of a vaccination incentive scheme utilized in Detroit. The results showed that many Michigan counties—as well as the city of Detroit—would not reach herd immunity given the progress of vaccination efforts. Also, we found that Detroit's incentive scheme indeed increased the weekly vaccination rate by 44.19% for the first dose (from 0.86 to 1.25%) but was ineffective in augmenting the rate of the second dose. The implications are valuable for policy makers to implement vaccination incentive schemes to boost vaccination rates in geographical areas where such rates remain inadequate for achieving herd immunity.

scholarly journals The short-term response of the Hispanic noncitizen population to anti-illegal immigration legislation

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (42) ◽  
pp. 25-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzalo E. Sánchez
Keyword(s):  
Control Method ◽  
High Mobility ◽  
State Level ◽  
Consistent Estimate ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Sb 1070 ◽  
Immigration Legislation ◽  
The Us

Purpose This paper aims to examine the short-term effect of the Arizona Immigration Law of 2010 (SB 1070) on the noncitizen Hispanic state population. Design/methodology/approach To get a consistent estimate of this effect, a synthetic control method has been used to calculate a suitable counterfactual. Findings Results indicate that this bill produced a statistically significant short-term reduction in the proportion of noncitizen Hispanics in Arizona between 10 and 15 per cent. However, the evidence suggests that this effect vanishes after a few months. Originality/value These findings are consistent with previous evidence of the high mobility of the undocumented population in the US, and contribute to the understanding of the effects of federal and state-level immigration legislation.

scholarly journals Stay Home Save Lives: A Machine Learning Approach to Causal Inference to Evaluate Impact of Social Distancing in the US

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Syed Muhammad Ishraque Osman ◽  
Nazmus Sakib
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Us States ◽  
Social Distancing ◽  
Machine Learning Approach ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Although there are few studies done to provide estimations of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, however, there is a need for an actual policy evaluation of the already implemented social distancing measures. In the US context in specific, this is especially instrumental because nearly a dozen US states are considering the reopening of the economy following anti social distancing protests. Using a machine learning based Generalized Synthetic Control Method, considering the US states that adopted early social distancing approaches as the treatment group and the states that adopted social distancing much later as the control group and controlling for state and time fixed effects (to cancel out the selection bias and endogeneity), this paper finds that social distancing is associated with lower COVID-19 infection growth rate (by 192%) when compared to the no policy intervention counterfactual.

Applying Synthetic Control Method to Estimate the Impact of the Lava Jato Operation on the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 2631309X2110178
Author(s):  
Eduardo Carvalho Nepomuceno Alencar ◽  
Bryant Jackson-Green
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Governance Indicators ◽  
Regulatory Quality ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Control Of Corruption

In 2014, the most prominent anti-corruption investigation in Latin America called Lava Jato, exposed a Brazilian corruption scheme with reverberations in 61 countries, resulting in legal judgments for nearly 5 billion USD in reimbursements thus far. This article applies the synthetic control method on data from 135 countries (2002–2018) to test the hypothesis that Lava Jato impacts the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil. The findings reveal that Lava Jato negatively affects control of corruption, the rule of law, and regulatory quality. There are signs of possible improvement in at least the corruption and the rule of law measures. This paper brings value to the criminological body of literature, notably lacking in the Global South.

scholarly journals When is a Match Sufficient? A Score-based Balance Metric for the Synthetic Control Method

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Layla Parast ◽  
Priscillia Hunt ◽  
Beth Ann Griffin ◽  
David Powell
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Treated Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Donor Pool ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn some applications, researchers using the synthetic control method (SCM) to evaluate the effect of a policy may struggle to determine whether they have identified a “good match” between the control group and treated group. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of the mean and maximum Absolute Standardized Mean Difference (ASMD) as a test of balance between a synthetic control unit and treated unit, and provide guidance on what constitutes a poor fit when using a synthetic control. We explore and compare other potential metrics using a simulation study. We provide an application of our proposed balance metric to the 2013 Los Angeles (LA) Firearm Study [9]. Using Uniform Crime Report data, we apply the SCM to obtain a counterfactual for the LA firearm-related crime rate based on a weighted combination of control units in a donor pool of cities. We use this counterfactual to estimate the effect of the LA Firearm Study intervention and explore the impact of changing the donor pool and pre-intervention duration period on resulting matches and estimated effects. We demonstrate how decision-making about the quality of a synthetic control can be improved by using ASMD. The mean and max ASMD clearly differentiate between poor matches and good matches. Researchers need better guidance on what is a meaningful imbalance between synthetic control and treated groups. In addition to the use of gap plots, the proposed balance metric can provide an objective way of determining fit.

scholarly journals Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
MARTIN GILENS ◽  
SHAWN PATTERSON ◽  
PAVIELLE HAINES
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

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