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A St. Lawrence graduate and a former professor are co-authors of a forthcoming article in the journal Human Dimensions of Wildlife, based on the alumna's senior honors thesis.

"Social Capital: What is the Value of Hunting Club Memberships?," by Cynthia Green '01, Therese Grijalva (of Weber State University) and Stephan Kroll, of California State University/ Sacramento, will be published in Vol. 9, Issue 1 of the journal.

While on the faculty at St. Lawrence, Kroll was the first reader of Green's honors thesis in economics. It evolved into the paper, which examines the impact of declining hunting club memberships in the Adirondack region of New York State. The paper's abstract states, "When the State of New York purchased the Champion Lands in the Adirondack Park and subsequently terminated the leases of 48 hunting clubs on these lands, opponents of the purchase argued that: (1) a rich and unique culture was being destroyed; and (2) that the State failed to include the loss of this social capital in an economic impact analysis as specified by the State Environmental Quality and Review Act. In this study, responses to dichotomous choice contingent valuation (DC-CV) questions are used to estimate the value a member attaches to a hunting club membership. The willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a hunting club membership (beyond other hunting-related expenses) is estimated to be over $1,290, which corresponds to a total value of about $1.9 million for the 1,500 hunters in the 48 concerned clubs. These estimates should be included in a full benefit-cost analysis of the purchase, and provide useful input to the societal debate regarding future land purchases by states."

Green, a resident of Madrid, NY, was a member of the economics honorary Omicron Delta Epsilon and also majored in English (writing). In addition, she was selected to be a Faculty Scholar.

Posted: February 4, 2004