Characterization of Birdwatching Demand Using a Logit Approach: Comparative Analysis of Source Markets (National vs. Foreign)

Birdwatching is a tourism activity that relates closely to protected natural spaces and that helps contribute to the balance between economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainability. In some European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland), this recreational activity has a large number of followers, making it a new segment of tourist demand with great possibilities for growth. The objective of this study is to identify the main characteristics of the demand for birdwatching in one of the European territories having a high resource supply, as is the case with Extremadura (Spain). To do this, a logit modelization has been proposed in order to estimate the probability of going birdwatching in the region, based on a random sample of over 3000 tourists that visited the region in 2017. This characterization of birdwatching demand was carried out using variables such as gender, age, type of travel, type of lodging, and assessment of tourism services. Given that the national and the foreign demand of this tourism modality may present distinct behaviors, and therefore, specific characterizations, a structural change test (Chow test) was also conducted in order to determine to what extent these two segments of demand, based on the source markets, have (or do not have) distinguishing features.

Testing for Structural Change in Heterogeneous Panels with an Application to the Euro's Trade Effect

This paper presents a structural change test for panel data models in which the break (or the change) affects some, but not all, cross-section units in the panel. The test is robust to non-normal, heteroskedastic and autocorrelated errors, as well as end-of-sample structural change. The test amounts to computing and comparing pre- and post-break sample statistics as Chow (1960) type F statistics averaged over cross-section units. The cases of known and unknown break date are both considered. Under mild assumptions, the test has a limiting standard normal distribution as the number of cross-sections tends to infinity. Monte Carlo experiments show that the test has good size and power under a wide range of circumstances, including when the break date is unknown and differs across individual units, and when errors exhibit cross-section dependence. Finally, the test is illustrated by seeking a break in the dynamics of trade among euro area countries following the introduction of the euro.

STRUCTURAL CHANGE TESTS BASED ON IMPLIED PROBABILITIES FOR GEL CRITERIA

This paper proposes Pearson-type statistics based on implied probabilities to detect structural change. The class of generalized empirical likelihood estimators (see Smith 1997, The Economic Journal107, 503–519) assigns a set of implied probabilities to each observation such that moment conditions are satisfied. The proposed test statistics for structural change are based on the information content in these implied probabilities. We consider cases of structural change with unknown breakpoint that can occur in the parameters of interest or in the overidentifying restrictions used to estimate these parameters. We also propose a structural change test based on implied probabilities that is robust to weak identification or cases in which parameters are completely unidentified. The test statistics considered here have competitive size and power properties. Moreover, they are computed in a single step, which eliminates the need to compute the weighting matrix required for generalized method of moments estimation.