Tim -For what it's worth:
IMHO, citing the costs of licenses in other states should not get you too faras developing any cause and effect relationship of risinglicensing costs having an "economic impact" in Indiana. Are you refering to impact on the hunters,the Natural Resources Department, orthe local economy that spins off hunting activities?

Here's some ideas:

Easy Project:
Determine if the higher cost of licenses over time is reducing the real income to the Indiana Dept of Natural Resources.(Impact: fewer dollars could lead to lessor poorer wildlife management).

Basic approach: calculate the (real) income generated from license sales in Indiana over time.

Steps:
Find the costs of Indiana resident and nonresident licenses for 1980, '85, '90, '95, 2000, '05. Adjust the license costs for inflation.(chooseor not to include new fees that may have come along such as (?) bonus deertags, HIP, or whatever). Find outhow many resident and nonresident liscenses were sold for each of those years. Show theincome and population trends fromthe resident, nonresident, and combined streams. Make some statement about Indiana DNR's income from hunters - are higher fees bringing in more (real) income? (Bonus points: Is there an "elasticity of demand" for Indiana licenses? Are nonresidents paying an increasingly higher percentage of the bills? Howcan DNR maximize its income?)

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A more comprehensive, collegiate approach:

Determine if higher licensing fees could be impactingthe number of residents who would otherwise hunt. (Impact: fewer hunters means less economic benefit to local economies/ or fewer hunters means it's more difficult for DNR to manage wildlife populations (e.g. deer).

Basic approach: show that over time, States with greater % increases in resident license fees had relativelyfewer residents joining the ranks of hunters. (Oneproblem is that there are many reasons why someone would not take up hunting - lack of a mentor, urbanization, lack of places to hunt, etc. You are trying to show that higher licensing costsmay also be a factor).
Suggest you get license fee data over~ 20-yr stretch for as many states as you have time. (Again sample every 5 yrs to make the task manageable; and don't forget to correct for inflation). Get the number of resident licenses sold for that period. Get the demographicdata for those statesand calculate the %ofresidents that purchased licenses during those years. Show whether or not there is a correlation of higher license costs with a declining percentage of residents purchasing licenses. You'll need to use the percent of residents purchasing licenses, because population growth should be different for the States, and could skew anydifferences. (For bonuspoints:establish a nullhypothesis that increasing fees do not affect participation and disprove it; use "percent of disposable income" for the license fee cost (e.g. one way to representthe costof buying something isto determine how longyou had to work in order to purchaseit. If your income has doubled over time, and the license fees have also doubled (all else being equal), then the "labor expended"to purchase a license has not increased)).

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-you can pm me if you have any questions .

-fsh

Great post, fsh! You've basically done all the work for him!

Fill in the gaps, and you've got an "A" for sure!

And...if you look or contact the state, I bet they've really done all the work for you to include numbers and projections.