41 research outputs found
NORMS, SELF-SANCTIONING, AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PUBLIC GOOD
No full textThe relationship between norms, self-sanctioning, and people’s decisions about contributing to public goods is complex and often misunderstood in the public goods literature. We develop a model in which individuals hold an injunctive norm indicating how much they believe one should contribute to the public good. From the model we derive the following testable hypotheses: an increase in one’s perception of the norm level of contribution to the public good (1) induces negative self-sanctioning and (2) will lead one to contribute more to the public good, and (3) that contributing to the public good induces positive self-sanctioning. To test these hypotheses, we elicit stated preferences for contributions to an organization which offsets carbon emissions and a proxy for self-sanctioning, change in respondent “self-image.”public goods, norms, sanctioning, image, Environmental Economics and Policy, Public Economics, H4, Q5, D0,
The Costs of Obtaining Environmental Outcomes through Coastal Habitat Restoration
No full textStudies examining the costs of coastal habitat restoration have focused on the cost per acre of restoration or on cost efficiency of various restoration methods. On the other hand, studies examining the benefits of restoration have focused on various ecosystem services that more directly affect welfare including amenity value, storm protection, nutrient retention and biodiversity. We examine a set of 133 Gulf of Mexico coastal habitat restoration projects to estimate the cost of obtaining average annual habitat units (AAHUs), a measure which captures the quantity and, importantly, quality of habitat restored, which is one of the more direct ecosystem service benefits from coastal restoration. AAHUs are the environmental outcome considered during the assessment of proposed projects by decision-makers and therefore are a potential measurement unit that can more closely link costs and benefits of restoration
Consumer willingness-to-pay for blemished fresh produce and its implications for food waste
No full textIn developed countries, approximately 222 million tons of food is wasted at the consumer level per year (FAO, 2011). These amounts of food waste have large social, economic, and environmental impacts. Studies have shown that one of the main causes of food waste in developed countries is consumers’ elevated expectations for appearances in fresh produce, causing imperfect produce to be wasted. In this study, we estimate consumer willingness to pay for sweet potatoes with five different skinning injury levels using a Vickrey 2nd price non- hypothetical auction. We test if consumer knowledge about (1) the percentage of blemishing, (2) the relationship between blemished produce and food waste, and (3) the environmental impacts of food waste influences willingness-to-pay for blemished produce. We find that consumer bids were affected by knowing the blemishing levels and after gaining knowledge about food waste and its environmental impacts
Mitigating hypothetical bias: an application to willingness to pay for beach conditions information
No full textHypothetical bias continues to be a challenge for practitioners of the contingent valuation method (CVM). This study compared the effect of three hypothetical bias mitigation techniques in a CVM survey focused on estimating maximum willingness to pay for a beach conditions monitoring service among U.S. Gulf Coast beachgoers. Beach conditions information is known to affect beach patronage but no valuation study has yet estimated its value. The two techniques tested are: budget and substitutes cheap talk treatments and certainty follow-up. We presented a theoretically consistent model of budget-constrained utility maximization which accounts for the respondents’ subjective probability of a good beach trip with and without the beach conditions information. Interval regression was used to estimate respondents WTP for beach conditions monitoring service. Both mitigation treatments were unable to mitigate HB. The mean WTP was 188,531,063 and $391,474,452
The difficulties of preference elicitation resulting from strategic thinking: How concerned should we be?
No full textStrategic voting in valuation choice experiments violates the common modeling assumption that everyone votes for his unconditionally most preferred choice. This presents a challenge to accurate estimation of values. We provide an examination of strategic voting in a homegrown value experiment that mimics choice experiments. In this way, we can test whether “prompting” participants to think about the others’ vote affects their vote. We reject this hypothesis. We also solicit participant perceptions about the vote distribution and test whether these perceptions affect their vote. We find that they do, but that the percentage of strategic voters is small
What to do with "prefer not to vote" responses from stated preference surveys?
No full textArrow et al. (1993) issued guidelines for contingent valuation, one of which was the recommendation that valuation questions include a ‘no-answer’ option such as ‘I prefer not to vote (PNV)’ in addition to the typical ‘yes’ and ‘no’ options. However, they did not give further guidelines on what to do with such responses, and there are various opinions in the literature. The objective of this thesis was to identify factors that affect the probability of a respondent choosing the PNV option in stated preference surveys. This thesis identified a positive relationship between offered bid for the proposed environmental project and the probability of respondents choosing PNV and a negative relationship between perceived consequentiality of the survey and the probability of respondents choosing PNV. From the findings, this thesis suggests possible solutions to reduce the frequency of such responses in order to increase accuracy of welfare estimates and cost efficiency
Norms, Image, and Private Contributions to Public Goods: Implications for Public Goods Policy
No full textTeaching Undergraduate Economics: Emphasize Early the Meaning of Vertical Distances and of Their Summation Over Quantities
No full textMany important economic concepts—for example, deadweight losses, market surplus measures, and concepts preceded by the word “total”—are graphically depicted as areas. Although many students can identify areas like total surplus appropriately in simple circumstances such as when a market is in equilibrium, many struggle to do so when the circumstances are even slightly more complex, such as when a market is not in equilibrium. The reason may be that many students do not understand how these areas are graphically derived. In this commentary, I discuss simple adjustments instructors can make to emphasize the economic meaning of vertical distances and of their summation over quantities so that students can better identify graphical representations of economic concepts even in more complex circumstances
A Challenge to Three Widely Held Ideas
No full textEnvironmental valuation is the branch of environmental economics in which researchers
estimate the economic value of environmental goods and services. Environmental valuation
has been practiced for decades. However, there are some ideas in the field of environmental
valuation held by many environmental economists and nonenvironmental economists that
appear to be outdated. This article discusses three such ideas: 1) that it is better to estimate
willingness-to-pay values than willingness-to-accept values; 2) that stated preference valuation
methods are questionable because they are based on hypothetical choices rather than
real choices; and 3) that it is better to use a repeated-choice question format than a singlechoice
format in choice experiments. We discuss the origins of each idea and why the idea
became prevalent in the first place.We then review recent literature, which casts doubt on the
idea.We conclude with a reminder for researchers—in environmental economics and in other
economic fields—to periodically reassess ideas they currently hold in light of recent research
developments and in light of the context in which they are used
Health motivation for purchasing local foods in the Southeastern United States
No full textHealth motivation is found to be a significant driver of local foods purchase (Maples et al., 2013; Onozaka, Nurse, and McFadden, 2010), yet it remains unclear what specific health aspects determine consumer purchase decisions. We study the specific health factors focusing on six particular diseases: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, back/joint pain and Alzheimer’s/dementia to find out whether a relationship exists between disease incidences and consumer decisions to buy local foods. We examine two separate decisions of whether and how frequently southeastern consumers buy local foods in a two-step decision framework known as Double Hurdle model. Results indicate that cancer, diabetes, obesity and back/joint pain are statistically significant to purchase foods at farm stands. Findings might help local food sellers and product marketers in the southeastern United States to gain a deeper understanding of how consumers’ health background and health concerns affect their choice of local food outlets
