the public s willingness to pay for securing a reliable natural gas supply in korea with the increasing importance of natural gas ng in the energy mix the search for a reliable liquefied ng lng supply has received great attention along with energy security in korea however the current level of lng supply reliability in korea is much lower than that in other industrialized countries in order to improve the reliability of the lng supply diverse policy measures are required which come at an additional cost paid by society this study aims to investigate the public s willingness to pay wtp for improving the reliability of the lng supply by increasing the lng storage rate from the current level 11 to 20 to this end the contingent valuation cv method is applied by using national survey data of 1000 households in particular this study employs a one and one half bound oohb dichotomous choice model combined with a spike model to address the responses from the cv survey with zero wtp the annual mean wtp is estimated to be krw 9641 usd 8 68 per household expanding the value to the national population provides a value of krw 169 43 billion usd 152 55 million the results indicate that people are willing to shoulder the burden of safeguarding a reliable supply of lng

assessing management options for weed control with demanders and non demanders in a choice experiment the yellow floating heart is a water weed causing nuisance problems in swedish water courses an economic analysis where various management options are considered is required using a choice experiment we estimate the benefits of a weed management program and perform a cost benefit analysis in order to be able to distinguish between those who have a demand for a program from those who do not we introduce a way to distinguish demanders from non demanders in the choice experiments using a simple cost benefit rule we find that cutting the weed in certain places in the lake can be justified

study on benefit transfer in an international setting how to improve welfare estimates in the case of the countries income heterogeneity abstract the paper aims at investigating the validity of benefit transfer in the case of transfers between countries highly heterogeneous in income and demonstrates relative performance of different benefit transfer methods under these conditions lake water quality valuation studies were conducted in two countries in transition poland and the czech republic they reflected two earlier studies carried out in norway we examine how income elasticity of wtp varies with the levels of income and find support for applying the income elasticity of 1 to adjust transferred welfare estimates in case of high differences in income between countries in addition we show that using site specific measures of income outperforms transfers based on gpd per capita the accuracy of benefit transfer is compared using equivalence testing following the tosc two one sided convolutions test a new more informative way of reporting equivalence is proposed based on computing minimum tolerance level rather than specifying it a priori

did the affordable care act young adult provision affect labor market outcomes analysis using tax data using a data set of us tax records spanning 2008 to 2013 the authors study the impact of the affordable care act aca young adult dependent coverage requirement on labor market related outcomes including measures of employment status job characteristics and postsecondary education they find that the aca provision did not result in substantial changes in labor market outcomes results show that employment and self employment are not statistically significantly affected although some evidence supports the increased likelihood of young adults earning lower wages not receiving fringe benefits enrolling as full time or graduate students and young men being self employed the magnitudes imply extremely small impacts on these outcomes in absolute terms and when compared to other estimates in the literature the authors find these results to be consistent with health insurance being less salient to young adults compared to other populations when making labor market decisions

inferred and stated attribute non attendance in food choice experiments we review the current literature on attribute non attendance in stated choice and use data from beef and chicken choice experiments using both inference and the respondents own statements inference is based on panel data analysis by mixed logit models of choice with both discrete and continuous mixtures of coefficients and is conditional on the observed pattern of choice information from respondent statements on non attendance is directly embedded in the specification of the indirect utility function results show no clear winner between the inferential approaches but the inference based on constrained latent class panel models better matches the observed data

the inverse relationship between size of land holdings and agricultural productivity the important relationship between the size of land holdings and agricultural productivity in developing countries has been debated intensely from early soviet debates to the extensive literature generated by the release of farm management survey fms data in india the question of returns to scale and input productivities primarily for land in traditional agriculture has been confused and clouded by strong positions and ideological predilections bhagawati and chakravarty saini 1969 and bharadwaj provide extensive bibliographies on the theoretical and empirical aspects of this problem in the indian context briefly sen 1964 1966 mazumdar 1963 1965 c h h rao 1966 1970 khusro saini 1971 bhattacharya and saini more or less endorse an inverse relationship between the land size and its productivity a p rao 1963 and rudra and bandhopadhyay do not believe in the existence of an inverse relationship and argue that no systematic relationship can be established between any two variables describing land size and productivity bharadwaj and others dismiss the statistical validity of an inverse relationship but generally accept it as a stylized fact the approach used in these statistical studies is to employ aggregate average or farm level data within a village or among different villages for all crops or a few specific ones various concepts of productivity and input variables are used the actual regressions use linear or log linear functional forms using the pooled fms data for several states in south india this paper makes an attempt to reexamine in a more general way the relationship between the size of land holdings and agricultural productivity this study employs the transcendental logarithmic translog function to formalize the relation between output and an arbitrary number of inputs the translog function is not locally constrained by assumptions of homogeneity or additivity estimates of output elasticity with respect to land size for various values of cooperating inputs will indicate whether the alleged inverse relationship holds in any or all circumstances

the korean public s willingness to pay for expanding the use of solid refuse fuel abstract solid refuse fuel srf a solid fuel that is produced from non hazardous combustible waste can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions compared with fossil fuels the korean government plans to enhance the ratio of combustible waste converted into srf from 16 in 2014 to 100 in 2020 by increasing the number of facilities that make and use srf this paper attempts to investigate empirically the korean public s willingness to pay wtp for expanding the use of srf the wtp data were obtained from a one and one half bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey of 1000 households because a considerable number of respondents 62 6 gave a zero wtp response we applied a spike model to treat the wtp data with zero observations the spike model fitted the data well considering that all the coefficient estimates are statistically significant at the 1 level the yearly mean wtp was computed as krw 2479 usd 2 17 per household for the next 10 years which is also statistically meaningful at the 1 level expanding the value to the national population gives us krw 46 4 billion usd 40 5 million per year the present value of the total public wtp amounts to krw 369 0 billion usd 322 3 million using a social discount rate of 5 5 we can conclude that korean households are ready to shoulder some of the financial burden to expand the use of srf

the effect of protest votes on the estimates of wtp for use values of recreational sites contingent valuation studies are often characterized by a considerable number of protest responses which may cause selectivity bias on the final estimates for wtp sample selection models can detect and if necessary correct selectivity bias in economic applications where the relevant dependent variable is continuous sample selection models are generally estimated using heckman s 2 step method rather than the fiml estimator either method has its own drawback computational complexity for the fiml method susceptibility to collinearity problems for the 2 step method using data on valuation of forest resources for recreational use we analyse the performance of the two estimators in this application given the presence of some collinearity the fiml is preferred to the 2 step method a procedure is outlined to deal with selectivity problems in similar settings

a new paradigm for valuing non market goods using referendum data maximum likelihood estimation by censored logistic regression abstract this paper challenges the w m hanemann amer j agr econom 66 332 341 1984 and c sellar j p chavas and j r stoll j environ econom management 13 382 390 1986 utilizations of logit models to estimate the value of non market resources from referendum survey data these data are more informative than conventional choice data the random utility interpretation of logit models is therefore too restrictive bypassing the utility function entirely it will be shown that parameters and standard errors for utility theoretic inverse hicksian demand functions can be extracted directly and much more simply estimated demand functions need not be limited to those corresponding to the linear in parameters utility difference specifications which can be handled by packaged logit programs

applied welfare economics with discrete choice models economists have been paying increasing attention to the study of situations in which consumers face a discrete rather than a continuous set of choices such models are potentially very important in evaluating the impact of government programs upon consumer welfare but very little has been said in general regarding the tools of applied welfare economics indiscrete choice situations this paper shows how the conventional methods of applied welfare economics can be modified to handle such cases it focuses on the computation of the excess burden of taxation and the evaluation of quality change the results are applied to stochastic utility models including the popular cases of probit and logit analysis throughout the emphasis is on providing rigorous guidelines for carrying out applied work this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

risky sports and the value of safety information abstract we develop a theoretical account of how athletes engaged in risky sports value safety information based on our model we postulate that the demand value of such information rises with wealth and exposure and declines with the athlete s appetite for risk we use survey data from a sample of backcountry skiers to empirically test these predictions the high degree of self control over exposure makes these athletes a well suited population to study the demand value of safety information caution is warranted in the empirical analysis as unobserved factors may jointly affect the athlete s perceived risk and his willingness to pay for obtaining safety information we use a recursive two stage estimation approach to account for endogeneity concerns the empirical results are supportive of our theoretical predictions and suggest that variations in athletes demand for safety information can be explained by personal beliefs about risk exposure and deliberate risk taking

income treatment effects in contingent valuation the case of the swedish predator policy this paper provides case study evidence on two relevant issues in estimating the relationship between wtp and income using contingent valuation 1 the choice of income measure and 2 the modelling choice addressing these issues a sensitivity analysis is performed on a dataset concerning implementation of the swedish predator policy the results show that the estimated income elasticity of wtp varies between 0 12 and 0 40 for the models estimated the main conclusion drawn from the analysis is that controlling for the number of adults in the household is important for finding a significant income effect when the household income measure is used besides this finding the empirical analysis finds little support for the hypothesis that the choice of income measure and modelling assumptions significantly influence the overall model fit

difficulties in valuing street light improvement trust surprise and bound effects previous empirical research has demonstrated an internal inconsistency that may occur in response strategies between the first and second valuations made to closed ended contingent valuation questions one possible explanation for this bound effect is the surprise of being asked the second valuation question which may be enhanced where there is a lack of trust this paper considers the use of closed ended contingent valuation to estimate non market benefits for an improved street lighting scheme where there is a lack of trust in the agency responsible for provision the results provide confirmation that surprise is an important determinant of bound effects however efforts to reduce such bias using a prior statement of the bid range were found to be ineffective in increasing trust and reducing surprise given the importance of this area of research directions for future research are considered

valuing health care using willingness to pay a comparison of the payment card and dichotomous choice methods this paper compares willingness to pay wtp estimates generated from the dichotomous choice dc and payment card pc approaches in a split sample wtp experiment concerned with allocating scarce health care resources across three health care interventions the dc approach is shown consistently to generate larger welfare estimates than the pc observed difference between pc and dc experiments cannot be explained by the inclusion of non demanders or methods of statistical analysis but may be partly explained by yea saying no evidence of range bias or mid point bias was found with pc responses data were also collected on respondents ordinal rankings of the three interventions and person trade offs ptos neither of these approaches converged with wtp future work must address the decision heuristics individuals employ when responding to valuation experiments

the public s value for developing ocean energy technology in the republic of korea a contingent valuation study abstract ocean energy is a type of renewable energies and is considered as having a potential power of providing a substantial amount of energy although some forms of ocean energy are developed there is a need for further technological advances to better utilize ocean energy government should take observable actions to compensate for the costs of developing the technology this paper attempts to apply a contingent valuation cv method to obtaining at least a preliminary evaluation of the benefits that ensue from the development of the technology that commercializes ocean energy in the republic of korea overall the cv survey was successfully carried out to elicit the willingness to pay wtp for ocean energy the wtp was statistically significantly estimated from one and one half bounded spike model and the monthly mean wtp estimates was krw 1003 usd 0 9 per household the estimates of the annual benefits to relevant residents amounted to krw 206 4 billion usd 183 8 million

binary choice valuation studies with heteregeneous preferences regarding the program being valued we investigate the effect of respondents heterogeneous preferences regarding the good to be valued in binary choice contingent valuationstudies this is especially important when the valuation options give rise to both highly negative and highly positive attitudes the survey design employs questionnaires which include separate items for willingness to favorandwillingness to contribute in monetary terms to the provision of the good in light of our analysis eliciting respondents differentpreferences for the project first without monetary considerations wouldimprove the wtp estimates as welfare measures our results alsosuggest that nonparametric estimation could offer another solution foraccounting for preference heterogeneity nonparametric estimation is less sensitive to those no responses which are in fact not intended toreflect the respondents wtp as such but merely to express their dislikefor the good at issue

spike models in contingent valuation spike models allow for a nonzero probability of zero willingness to pay in referendum style contingent valuation experiments they include many of the often used models as special cases and allow various analyses that are not possible in standard applications in this paper the economic rationale for the spike models and their estimation techniques are discussed and empirical illustrations are provided one study suggests that mean willingness to pay is zero and both studies strongly suggest that median wtp is zero these results have some bearing on the continuing debate of the incentive properties of hypothetical surveys and the construction of scenarios in contingent valuation experiments

addressing negative willingness to pay in dichotomous choice contingent valuation this paper has four purposes first we outline the controversy surroundingthe issue of negative willingness to pay wtp in contingent valuation cv studies second we use monte carlo simulation to examine theperformance of alternative distributionalassumptions in estimating wtp in the presenceof varying proportions of the populationholding negative wtp values we focus ondichotomous choice cv dc cv where negativewtp values may be especially difficult todetect third we extend the simulation toinvestigate the performance of the mixturemodels that have recently been proposed forhandling identifying non positive wtp values fourth we extend the simulation to investigatethe performance of the nonparametric lowerbound turnbull approach results indicate thatthe relative performance of the dc cv modelingalternatives evaluated here which assumepositive wtp varies across the simulationsetting e g proportion of negative wtp butnone can be said to reasonably solve theproblem ex post this underscores theimportance of ex ante efforts to identify ifnegative wtp is likely to be prominent in agiven valuation setting in such cases appropriately handling negative wtp must beaddressed through ex ante survey design andmodeling choices that allow negative wtp

contingent valuation and social choice the contingent valuation method for estimating the existence value of natural resources is examined for psychophysical robustness statistical reliability and economic sensibility extensions of standard models for willingness to pay and suitable econometric techniques for analyzing these models are developed the analysis is applied to a series of experiments on the value of preserving wilderness areas in the western united states the results call into question the reliability of the cv method for estimating existence values

modelling willingness to pay responses from dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys with zero observations modelling household behaviour with the data from dichotomous choice contingent valuation dccv surveys is often complicated by zero willingness to pay wtp responses in the sample to deal with the zero responses a two equation model is considered which incorporates a two level decision structure a decision on whether to participate in having wtp and a decision on the wtp amount conditional on deciding to participate and two separate stochastic processes that determine the probability and conditional level of wtp are featured the model is empirically applied to household survey data in which the dccv questions concerned the benefits of air quality improvement in korea to put the issue of the two equation model in perspective this paper also experiments with economic and econometric specifications utility theoretic restriction and heteroscedasticity it is shown how failure to allow for the restriction distorts aggregate benefit estimates and the existence of heteroscedasticity in error term is

accounting for cultural heritage a theoretical and empirical exploration with focus on swedish reindeer husbandry the aim of this paper is to explore some of the theoretical and empirical aspects of an economy which includes cultural capital we use a simple dynamic growth model and the concept of a social acc

willingness to pay for environmental improvements in a large city evidence from the spike model and from a non parametric approach in this paper the contingent valuation method cvm is applied in order toestimate the social benefits of a set of environmental and urbanimprovements planned for the waterfront of the city of valencia spain asa consequence of the expansion and restructuring of its trading port asthe data show a high rate of zero responses we applied the spike model one of the most recent models in cvm literature since traditional models logit and probit are not suitable given the characteristics of our data the non parametric approach is also applied in order to test the validity ofthe spike model the results show certain similarities between the spikemodel and the non parametric approach

estimating the economic benefits of acidic rock drainage clean up using cost shares abstract this paper reports the results of a stated preference study that estimates the economic value for cleaning up acid rock drainage in colorado s snake river watershed in contrast to much of the existing literature the present study emphasizes benefit estimation for three implementing projects rather than benefit estimation for general changes in water quality or large scale water quality policy the focus on implementing projects delivers information that is specifically relevant to current decisions being faced in the watershed while valuation questions in most stated preference studies present costs that have no relation to actual project costs this study presents a new cost share approach project costs are estimated and then valuation questions present different local cost shares to subjects this approach facilitates stated cost variation necessary for estimating the mean of the distribution of project values without resorting to experimentally designed fictitious stated costs in addition to estimating the mean value which facilitates benefit cost analysis the study also provides median value estimates which provide insights into the political feasibility of these projects study results suggest that local cost shares on the order of 20 40 depending on the project are politically feasible

willingness to pay for green electricity in korea a contingent valuation study abstract green electricity is energy that is generated from renewable energy sources such as solar power wind power small scale hydroelectric power tidal power and biomass power these sources mostly do not produce pollutants and are considered environmentally friendly however considering the current state of technology they are more costly government should take visible actions to compensate for the increased production costs this paper attempts to apply a contingent valuation cv method to obtain at least a preliminary evaluation of the benefits that ensue from the introduction of the policy that raises the percentage of green electricity consumption from 0 2 of the total electricity supply to 7 by 2011 overall the cv survey was successful in eliciting the willingness to pay wtp for green electricity considering that the cv method operated within respondents abilities to answer and the wtp estimates were statistically significant the monthly mean wtp estimates from parametric and non parametric methods were krw 1681 usd 1 8 and krw 2072 usd 2 2 respectively the estimates of the annual benefits to relevant residents amounted to krw 150 5 billion usd 157 5 million and krw 185 6 billion usd 194 2 million respectively