WHAT IS CONSUMERS-SURPLUS PER DAY OF USE, WHEN IS IT A CONSTANT INDEPENDENT OF THE NUMBER OF DAYS OF USE, AND WHAT DOES IT TELL US ABOUT CONSUMERS-SURPLUS

An individual's consumer's surplus per day of use for a change in the price of recreational site is the price change, so it is a constant, independent of the number of days of use. Consumer's surplus per day of use for a change in a site's characteristics is not, in general, a constant. When a constant compensating variation per day of use exists, it multiplied by the number of days at the site in the original state (proposed state) bounds the compensating variation, CV, from below (above). The average of these two approximations is an almost second-order approximation to the CV. Simulations indicate the approximation biases can be large. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.