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Attendance Trends Threaten Future Operations Of America’S State Park Systems, Jordan Smith, Emily J. Wilkins, Yu-Fai Leung

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

This research examines how the operating expenditures of America’s state park systems will be affected by a continued growth in attendance consistent with observed trends as well as potential climate futures. We construct a longitudinal panel dataset (1984–2017) describing the operations and characteristics of all 50 state park systems. These data are analyzed with a time-varying stochastic frontier model. Estimates from the model are used to forecast operating expenditures to midcentury under four different scenarios. The first scenario assumes annual attendance within each state park system will continue to grow (or decline) at the same average annual rate that it …