The charisma premium: Iconic individuals and wildlife values

Christopher Costello, Lynne Lewis, John Lynham and Leslie Richardson

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2023, vol. 122, issue C

Abstract: We develop a new theory of the wildlife-viewing value of particularly “charismatic” individuals in a population. In contrast to the existing recreation literature, which typically treats all individuals as interchangeable, we allow for heterogeneous charisma within a population, and ask how this heterogeneity affects each individual’s marginal value. We find that more charismatic individuals confer higher value than their nondescript peers, populations with heterogeneous charisma are more valuable than homogeneous populations, and populations with more heterogeneous charisma raise the value of their most charismatic individuals. These results suggest that traditional approaches to wildlife-viewing valuation are inappropriate when specific individuals within the population are singled out as being more charismatic by wildlife viewers. We apply the model to bear viewing in Katmai National Park, Alaska (site of the famous Fat Bear competition). We find that the most charismatic individual (“Otis”) is more than an order of magnitude more valuable than the median bear. These results have implications for government agencies assigning damage values when individuals within a population are poached or accidentally killed.

Keywords: Charismatic; Valuation; Wildlife population (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q26 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:122:y:2023:i:c:s0095069623000906

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2023.102872

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