The value of cabin-based outdoor recreation: Evidence from a natural experiment

Use-values of nonmarket environmental amenities are often elicited by studying the demand for outdoor recreation, and credible value estimates are essential for designing efficient policies affecting the supply of such goods. Yet rigorous causal identification of outdoor recreation demand remains limited. Our study contributes to the growing literature on taking causal inference techniques and GPS-based observational data sources to the field of valuation of nonmarket environmental amenities. We exploit a sharp increase in electricity prices in Norway following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as a natural experiment to study the price sensitivity of cabin-based outdoor recreation. Using activity traces from the training app Strava spatially merged with geolocated cabin sites, we find a 15% decline in cabin recreation following the price shock. From this response, we infer an average consumer surplus of approximately $6,000 per cabin owner per year, equivalent to about $204 per use-day, and a price elasticity of −0.24, indicating inelastic demand. These findings point to considerable welfare benefits from cabin recreation and illustrate the value of combining quasi-experimental designs with high-frequency mobility data for valuation of nonmarket environmental amenities.