The Potential Influence of Researchers’ “Hidden” Procedure Decisions on Estimates of Visitor Spending and Economic Impact
研究识别并实证检验了经济影响分析中八项常被忽略的研究者决策，其中四项可能显著夸大支出估计，另四项影响相对较小。
The potential influence of eight decisions made by researchers that are unlikely to be reported in economic impact analyses are identified and empirically tested. The data set was comprised of studies undertaken at nine state parks in Texas. Four of the decisions were categorized as being potentially relatively malignant in that they used obviously inappropriate procedures and were likely to substantially exaggerate expenditure estimates: using group weighting rather than individual weighting; omitting a measure of the extent to which visiting a park was the primary trip purpose; retaining outlier values; and aggregating different visitor segments. The four relatively benign decisions were: convenience or probability samples; managers’ or samples’ estimates of number of nonlocal visitors; treating nonresponses as missing data or as zero expenditures; and sector selection for assignment of government expenditures.