A park by any other name: National Park designation as a natural experiment in signaling

Site designation conveys a unique set of signals to information-constrained potential visitors. Changes in designation thus offer natural experiments to evaluate the signaling importance of names. This paper estimates the visitation effect of the conversion of National Monuments to National Parks. Such conversions generate persistent significant impacts, indicating that designation signals are indeed credible. These signals are particularly important to information-constrained distant national visitors compared to more proximate state and metro populations who have better information about nearby sites. Furthermore, park visits appear to be economical yet naturally rewarding inferior goods, as visitation increases when incomes stagnate.