In two essays, this thesis reports the findings of a choice experiment (CE) conducted as part of a state-wide web survey of Great Lakes beach goers in Michigan. Despite the popularity of visiting Great Lakes beaches, little is known about visitors' preferences for environmental attributes at beaches. Existing literature focuses on marine beach valuation and the valuation of Great Lakes ecosystems services other than beaches. In the first essay, to address this gap, we gather preferences for environmental quality attributes at Great Lakes beaches. We find respondents prefer beaches closer to home, beaches with less algae in the shore and in the water, and beaches tested for bacteria. In a second essay, we examine the effect of labeling (i.e. assigning names to) the alternatives within a CE. Although there is a growing literature focused on the effects of CE design elements at the discretion of the researcher, little attention has been given to the effects of different labeling schemes (i.e. whether alternatives within the choice sets are labeled with a name or are left as generic alternatives). We employ a split-sample CE where respondents see either labeled, same-labeled (i.e. labels present but held constant), or unlabeled alternatives (with Great Lake names used as labels). Although we find some differences in parameters and marginal rates of substitution from the three labeling schemes, results are highly similar in rank and magnitude, suggesting a large degree of preference consistency and a high degree of transferability of the values for use in benefit transfer.
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