1,721,065 research outputs found
Extensions of the traditional models of non-market valuation for public goods to a collective framework
Full text linkNon disponibileWhenever events or a proposed change in policy affect quality or availability of
environmental resources and public goods, either explicit or implicit cost-benefit
analyses must often be undertaken. It has been recognised that the value of these
goods is not explicitly determined through market transactions and the absence of
markets makes it extremely difficult to establish a monetary value for access to these
goods. Economists answered this challenge by developing methods of nonmarket
valuation for public goods. Methods for valuing environmental goods have been
categorized as indirect and direct.
Direct methods, as the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), ask consumers
what they would be willing to pay (WTP) or accept (WTA) for a change in an
environmental amenity. They are examples of stated preference techniques that
establish hypothetical markets for public goods. Direct methods have the main
advantage that they allow the measurement of non-use values but they are commonly
criticised because of the hypothetical nature of the question (i.e. ‘hypothetical bias’)
and the fact that the actual behavior is not observed. Researchers have identified also
other problems and biases, such as strategic bias, information bias, and starting
point bias (see detailed discussion of the problems in Cummings et al., 1986 and
Mitchell and Carson, 1989).
To investigate the validity of direct methods, researchers have compared the
WTP estimates derived by applying the CVM with the WTP estimates based on
indirect methods of valuation (Bishop and Heberlin, 1979; Bishop et al., 1983; Seller
et al. 1985; Cameron, 1992; Adamowicz et al., 1994; Carson et al., 1996; Azevedo et
al., 2003). Indirect methods, such as the Travel Cost Method (TCM), use actual
choices made by consumers. These constitute revealed preferences over goods. The
basic premise of the TCM is that the time and the travel cost expenses that people
incur to visit a site represent the price of access to the site. The WTP to visit a site is
estimated based on the number of trips that people make at different travel costs. The
TCM avoids the criticism of being based on hypothetical behavior but it has other
problems such as how to handle multiple-day trips, how to value time costs, how to
choose the functional form of the demand for trips and how to incorporate temporal
uncertainty (Cameron, 1992).
This list can be extended but we argue that one of the main limitations is that
the TCM focuses on defining a household to have the same utility level as a single
individual. It assumes that a household acts as an elementary decision making unit
where all resources are pooled and household decisions are made by a single decision
maker. In particular, travel cost information is limiting in that it can reveal consumer
preferences for non-market goods only capturing family behavior, while instead the
WTP is an individual based measure. The correspondence between WTP estimates
from the CVM and the TCM is maintained only in the case when considering a
sample of singles
Toddlers, Preschoolers and Adolescents with Asthma? Age-specific Effects of Children’s Health on Mothers’ Labor Supply and Wages
No full textThere is growing evidence that children’s poor health can affect mothers’ labor market outcomes, however, most of the literature on children’s health has focused on disability or general health status. This study focuses on one of the leading chronic diseases in children, asthma, and it investigates (i) the effects of having an asthmatic child on mothers’ labor supply and wages; (ii) whether there are age-specific differences on the effects of child health on mothers’ labor market outcomes, and (iii) whether the effects differ between single mothers and mothers with partners. This study uses the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey for U.S. households with children 0-17 years old from 1996 to 2002, and controls for mothers’ unobserved heterogeneity and sample selectivity. The results suggest that the effects differ by the age group of the ill child, and between single mothers and mothers with partners. In particular, single mothers, and mothers with asthmatic preschool children or asthmatic adolescents are the most affected groups
The Effects of Asthmatic Children on Fathers’ Labor Supply and Wages
No full textThis paper explores how asthmatic children affect the labor supply and hourly wages of fathers with partners in the United States. Fixed-effects estimates suggest that the group most affected is fathers with an asthmatic child less than six years old. They experience a significant increase in weekly work hours and a significant decrease in their wages. I also find evidence that fathers’ heterogeneity leads to biased estimates of the effects of
children health on fathers’ labor market outcomes
Environmental Risks, Health, and Households’ Labor Market Response. Empirical Evidence from the United States
No full textMany studies have shown an association between environmental exposures and certain health conditions. A responsibility of many government agencies is to protect the health of the citizens from environmental pollutants, through the implementation of specific regulations. Estimates of the labor market impacts of these diseases constitute an important component of benefit estimation, for regulatory impact analyses of health and safety regulations. The main goal of this study is to show how specific adults’ and children’s health conditions potentially linked to environmental pollution exposure affect the labor market decisions of households in the United States. This study considers first, the direct effect of a married woman or married man’s health on their own labor market outcomes; second, the influence of a spouse’s health conditions on the other spouse’s labor market decisions; and third, the impact of a child’s chronic health condition on parents’ labor market outcomes. The findings of this study are of importance in informing national health policies, and more generally, in designing social programs
Crop Diversification and Child Health: Empirical Evidence from Tanzania, Working Paper No. 211, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science
No full textMalnutrition is recognized as a major issue among low-income households in developing countries with long-term implications for economic development. Recently, crop diversification has been recognized as a strategy to improve nutrition and health, and as a risk coping strategy used by farmers in the face of climate change. However, there is no systematic empirical evidence on the role played by crop diversification in improving human health. We use the Tanzania National Panel Survey to investigate the effects of crop diversification on child health. We use fixed effects panel estimation to control for unobserved heterogeneity, and perform several robustness checks including placebo tests to test the validity of our findings. We find a positive and significant effect of crop diversification on long-term child nutritional status, in particular for very young children and children living in households with limited market access
Social Identity, Attitudes Towards Cooperation, and Social Preferences: Evidence from Switzerland
No full textWe investigate the role of social identity in explaining individual variation in social preferences in the domain of cooperation. We combine measures of social identity at both extensive and intensive margins with measures of social preferences elicited using a public goods game in the strategy method among a representative sample of Swiss households. We document a strong association between social identity and social preferences, which becomes stronger with the degree of social identity. Using different data sources, we show that social identity matters also for attitudes towards cooperation. Our results are not driven by differences in national or even local institutions, geography, historical, and economic conditions. Additional analyses show that grandparental and parental background shapes social identity, as well as social preferences. Our design allows us to go beyond behavior and disentangle social preferences from beliefs, highlighting the importance of social identity for deeper social preferences in a natural field setting
Crop Diversification and Child Health: Empirical Evidence from Tanzania, Working paper No. 8, Department of Economics, University of Verona
No full textEnvironmental Exposures, Children’s Health and Parents’ Labor Market Decisions in the United States: The Role of Asthma
No full textMany studies have shown an association between air pollution and asthma exacerbation. Economists have often valued the economic benefits of a reduction in asthma attacks in children by applying the Cost-of-Illness approach without taking into account the impact of children’s health on the labor market decisions of parents. This study explores how the presence of an asthmatic child affects (i) mothers’ labor force participation; (ii) mothers’ and fathers’ number of work hours, and (iii) mothers’ and fathers’ earnings and hourly wages. In addition, it addresses the question: are there age-specific differences on the effects of child health on parents’ labor market outcomes? I consider single mothers, and mothers and fathers with partners. The analysis is based on data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey for U.S. households with children 0-17 years old from 1996 to 2002. I compare these effects to those of a set of health conditions that includes deformities, congenital anomalies, heart problems, epilepsy and cancer. The results show that in quantifying the benefits of reducing pollution economists should also consider the labor market impacts of children health. In particular, my results suggest that single mothers are the most affected group, and that there are significant children age-specific differences
Teaching Children to Save: What Is the Best Strategy for Lifetime Savings?
No full textWe study the effect of alternative parental teaching strategies on the propensity to save and the amount saved during adulthood. Using a panel dataset from the Dutch DNB Household Survey we find that parental teaching to save increases the likelihood that an adult will save by 16%, and the saving amount by about 30%. The best strategy involves a combination of different methods (giving pocket money, controlling money usage, and giving advice about saving and budgeting). The effect of parental financial socialization is persistent with age, but decays at elder age for the propensity to save
The Diffusion of Information and Behavior in Social Networks: Renewable Energy Technology Adoption in Rural China; Working Paper No. 6, Department of Economics, University of Verona
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