consumer preference and willingness to pay for a renewable fuel standard rfs policy focusing on ex ante market analysis and segmentation abstract total energy consumption of oil in 2050 is expected to increase to 1 6 times its level in 2005 and greenhouse gas ghg emissions in the transportation sector will be second only to the electricity sector in order to reduce ghg emissions in transportation leading countries have started to implement renewable fuel standard rfs policies other countries such as korea have recently started implementing rfs policies in order to comply with the proposed global ghg reduction target however previous research did not consider the impact of rfs policy on consumer acceptance levels therefore this study analyzes consumer preferences and willingness to pay wtp for rfs to provide detailed policy strategies this study conducts additional analysis using market segmentation and sensitivity analysis the results indicate that consumers generally accept the cost of implementing an rfs policy if the cost falls between krw 101 78 liter usd 0 33 gal and krw 187 26 liter usd 0 60 gal in addition consumer wtp for implementing an rfs policy changes when the income exceeds krw 5 million usd 4229 1 in driver group and relatively lower income groups tend not to support rfs policies based on the results of this study we can suggest proper pricing policies for each income group and a public relations strategy to improve the level of policy acceptance

transport and low carbon fuel a study of public preferences in spain abstract transport is essential for the control of future greenhouse gas ghg emissions and thus a target for active policy intervention in the future yet social preferences for policies are likely to play an important role in this paper we first review the existing literature on preferences regarding low ghg car fuels but also covering policy instruments and strategies in this area we then present the results of a survey of spanish households aimed at measuring preferences for climate change policies we find a positive willingness to pay wtp in the form of higher car fuel prices for a policy to reduce ghg emissions through biofuels there is however significant heterogeneity in public preferences due to personal motivations accounted for via factor analysis of responses to attitudinal questions and to socio demographic variables

green market expansion by reducing information asymmetries evidence for labeled organic food products abstract we investigate how the provision of objective information about the environmental and health impact of organic labels by policy makers can influence the willingness to pay of consumers for labeled organic apples in flanders belgium using a stated choice experiment we initially find that flemish consumers are willing to pay a positive price premium of some 33 eurocent per kilogram for labeled organic apples after the provision of information on the actual environmental and health effects of organic apple production this price premium becomes even more pronounced and increases to 57 eurocent per kilogram using a conditional logit model with covariates and a mixed logit model we find evidence of preference heterogeneity also the effect of information provision is more pronounced for certain groups of consumers such as non vegetarians infrequent buyers of organic products and members of a nature protection organization as such this paper illustrates that there is a role for policy makers and csr producers in providing more accurate and reliable information about socially responsible production processes moreover it is important to take the observed preference heterogeneity into account and tailor policies to specific consumer groups

price disagreements and adjustments in index derivatives markets we examine whether index futures and options markets disagree with regard to their underlying spot prices and the mechanism whereby futures and options prices adjust to eliminate the price disagreements by comparing the actual and option implied futures prices the analysis of the microstructure dataset indicates that the price disagreement rates between the two markets are relatively low and both futures and options prices are adjusted in the case of disagreements

valuing the attributes of renewable energy investments increasing the proportion of power derived from renewable energy sources is becoming an increasingly important part of many countries s strategies to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions however renewable energy investments can often have external costs and benefits which need to be taken into account if socially optimal investments are to be made this paper attempts to estimate the magnitude of these external costs and benefits for the case of renewable technologies in scotland a country which has set particularly ambitious targets for expanding renewable energy the external effects we consider are those on landscape quality wildlife and air quality we also consider the welfare implications of different investment strategies for employment and electricity prices the methodology used to do this is the choice experiment technique renewable technologies considered include hydro on shore and off shore wind power and biomass welfare changes for different combinations of impacts associated with different investment strategies are estimated we also test for differences in preferences towards these impacts between urban and rural communities and between high and low income households

assessment of public acceptance and willingness to pay for renewable energy sources in crete abstract the aim of this study is to analyse and to evaluate the citizens public acceptance and willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy sources res in crete for this purpose a contingent valuation study was conducted using a double bound dichotomous choice format to elicit people s wtp and factors affecting it residents of 1440 households all over crete were interviewed face to face major conclusions can be used as a basis for sustainable energy planning for policies and the formulation of awareness campaigns and for res investment programs and projects in order to prepare implementation conditions and enhance public acceptance of renewable energy investments and programmes mean wtp per household was found to be 16 33 to be paid quarterly as an additional charge on the electricity bill larger willingness to pay was reported by those with high family income and residence size those having a higher level of energy information and awareness concerning climatic change those who have invested in some energy saving measures and those who suffer from more electricity shortages than others

factors affecting drivers willingness to pay for biofuels the case of italy biofuels represent a promising alternative to substitute fossil fuels and given the relevance of environmental impacts of the transport sector policy initiatives worldwide aim at supporting the shift towards such cleaner energy source acknowledging the crucial role that biofuels will play in years to come in the energetic paradigm the study aims at investigating key determinants of drivers willingness to pay for biofuels focusing on a sample of 260 individuals from northern italy n 260 in line with recent research on consumer behavior socio demographics are not good predictors of drivers willingness to pay surprisingly on the other hand knowledge of the topic is negatively correlated to willingness to pay so that the more people know about biofuels the less they are willing to pay a premium price moreover certification is not an effective tool to convince drivers of the eco friendliness of biofuels hence spurring willingness to pay possible explanations of the research findings as well as policy implications are discussed in detail along with suggestions for future research on the topic

willingness to pay for voluntary climate action and its determinants field experimental evidence the determinants of individual voluntary climate action vca in combating climate change and its potential scale are frequently debated in public but largely underresearched we provide estimates of the willingness to individually reduce eu greenhouse gas emissions by one ton using the european union emissions trading scheme estimates are derived from an online field experiment with a large highly heterogenous and internet representative sample of voting aged germans jointly estimating willingness to pay wtp non indifference to vca and prior knowledge we uncover important determinants of preferences for vca such as education the information structure among the population and exogenous environmental conditions

cournot and bertrand equilibria compared substitutability complementarity and concavity abstract this paper assesses the view that bertrand equilibrium is intrinsically more competitive than cournot equilibrium we consider an oligopoly model with linear demand and a mixture of substitute and complementary products our results provide support for the conventional wisdom and also indicate its limitations we provide counter examples showing that no clear cut comparison of prices and quantities is possible without strategic complementarity in either of the two games however price competition is indeed more competitive according to the following criteria lower mark up output ratios larger average output and lower average price

public s willingness to pay a premium for bioethanol in korea a contingent valuation study abstract bioethanol be a renewable energy is well known to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions compared with conventional gasoline thus the korean government is considering the introduction of a be mandate in which the legal blend is 5 be and 95 gasoline e5 until 2020 in order to expand be use we should examine the public acceptability of the introduction which incurs a rise in the fuel price this study attempts to assess the public s willingness to pay wtp a premium for introducing the e5 program in korea to this end a contingent valuation cv survey of 1000 randomly selected consumers was conducted in 2014 across the nation we used a one and one half bound dichotomous choice question in the cv survey and applied the spike model to handle the wtp data with zeros the mean wtp a premium for the e5 per liter is estimated to be krw 290 usd 0 27 which is statistically meaningful at the 1 level this value amounts to 15 6 of the gasoline retail price in 2014 krw 1856 or usd 1 70 and can be interpreted as the external benefit of be we can conclude that gasoline consumers in korea are ready to pay a significant premium for the e5

estimating willingness to pay from survey data an alternative pre test market evaluation procedure closed ended contingent valuation surveys are used to assess demands in hypothetical markets and recently have been applied widely to the valuation of non market environmental resources this int

heterogeneity in preferences for woody biomass energy in the us mountain west abstract millions of acres of public forest in the us mountain west are substantially degraded and are in need of restoration mechanized restoration treatments can improve forest health and reduce the likelihood of severe wildfire these treatments produce some timber and substantial amounts of forest residues that can be used to generate renewable energy and displace fossil fuels using the choice modeling method this study investigates social preferences for generation of energy with woody biomass produced by restoration treatments on public forests in the mountain west both multinomial logit and latent class logit lcl models are fit to the data and used to estimate marginal willingness to pay mwtp for increased amounts of woody biomass energy generation and important associated co benefits and costs positive and statistically significant mwtp is found for the number of homes powered with wood the extent of healthy forests avoiding increases in the number of large wildfires and local air quality significant heterogeneity was found in respondent preferences for the attributes the heterogeneity can be explained in part by sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics of respondents the lcl revealed four classes of respondents with distinct preferences revealing conflicting viewpoints toward forest management for woody biomass energy generation

determinants of protest responses in environmental valuation a meta study abstract certain design characteristics of stated preference surveys are often linked to protest responses the dichotomous choice format for example is said to result in fewer protest responses however not much is known at present about the relationship between survey characteristics and the level of protesting only partial analysis comparing for instance the influence of different payment vehicles on protesting has been conducted to date this paper analyses the determinants of protest responses using 254 samples derived from 157 environmental valuation studies determinants include the elicitation format the payment vehicle the survey method and the geographical origin results of bivariate and multivariate analyses confirm some of the propositions presented in the literature such as a higher number of protesters when entrance fees are used as a payment vehicle however many of the characteristics included in the analysis do not significantly impact protesting another result is that reporting on identification and treatment of protest responses in subsequent analysis is inadequate in the majority of studies and would benefit from some standardisation

evaluating the public perceptions of nuclear power in china evidence from a contingent valuation survey national natural science foundation of china 71303199 71373218 ministry of education foundation of china 13yjc790123 11jbgp006 13jzd010 fundamental research funds for the central universities 201122g008 2014221001 national social science foundation of china 13zd167

willingness to pay for e85 from corn switchgrass and wood residues abstract willingness to pay wtp for e85 automotive fuel blend of 85 ethanol and 15 gasoline was estimated from a contingent choice exercise contained in a national survey of consumers the choice exercise included e85 blends from three different feedstock sources corn grain switchgrass and wood wastes and an e10 blend 10 ethanol and 90 gasoline with corn grain as the ethanol feedstock results from the study indicate willingness to pay a premium for e85 from switchgrass compared with e10 from corn concerns about land use for food versus fuel had a negative impact on wtp for e85 from corn grain while greater concerns about fuel security relative to the environment had a positive impact

predicting consumer demand responses to carbon labels abstract providing carbon footprint labels for all food products is a daunting and potentially infeasible project knowing how consumers substitute away from high carbon goods and what they choose as substitutes is essential for understanding which goods are likely to result in meaningful reductions in carbon emissions this paper proposes a model to systematically estimate how consumers will respond to information from a carbon footprint label our model uses consumers value of their individual carbon footprint with own and cross price elasticities of demand data on carbon emissions from life cycle analysis to simulate shifts in consumer demand for 42 food products and a non food composite and subsequent changes in carbon emissions from different labeling schemes our simulation results have several findings including 1 carbon labels can reduce emissions but labeling only some items could lead to perverse impacts where consumers substitute away from labeled goods to unlabeled goods with a higher carbon footprint 2 carbon labels can inform consumers such that their previous beliefs about carbon footprints matter and 3 carbon labels on alcohol and meat would achieve the largest decreases in carbon emissions among the 42 food products studied

conjoint effect of environmental labeling disclosure of forest of origin and price on consumer preferences for wood products in the us and uk abstract a study that conjointly analyzed the effects of environmental labeling disclosure of forest of origin and price on consumer preferences for wood products was conducted in the us and the uk a choice based elicitation tool was used to mimic a real life situation where a single product was selected over a set of options data collected were analyzed using a conditional logit model certification issued by a government agency or an environmental non government organization both had a favorable effect on consumer preference over a non certified option the most relevant implication of our findings was the negative effect that disclosing information about a product coming from tropical forests had on consumer preferences even compared to a product of unknown origin a decline in product preference was observed along higher price premiums as expected the degree of sensitivity to price changes was affected by demographic characteristics model coefficients were used to estimate market shares of tropical wood products under different scenarios in both countries scenarios explored the effect of environmental certification and price premiums on product market shares

consumer demand for green power and energy efficiency abstract this article examines reported willingness to pay for electric utility investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency resources using the results of deliberative polls conducted by electric utilities in texas 1 age education and salary tend to affect reported willingness to pay for utility investments in these resources intensive exposure to information about energy resource issues led to an increase in the number of respondents interested in paying a modest premium to support investments in both renewable energy resources and energy efficiency however average reported premiums actually declined following the polls as very high outlier responses moved to more reasonable values following the polls these results support the contention that informed dialogue about energy alternatives will result in broader interest in providing a modest level of support for these resources

are consumers concerned about palm oil evidence from a lab experiment abstract a lab experiment evaluates the consumers willingness to pay wtp for food products made with and without palm oil palm oil production induces environmental damages and its consumption presents a health risk however the production of alternative oils raises land use issues in the experiment successive messages emphasizing the characteristics of palm oil and palm oil free products are delivered to participants information has a significant influence on wtp when it underlines the negative impact of the related product this effect is stronger for the palm oil product than for the palm oil free product the experiment also compares the welfare effects of two regulatory instruments namely a consumer information campaign versus a per unit tax because of the respective attributes of both palm oil and palm oil free products the information campaign improves welfare with a much larger impact than the tax

social capital and willingness to pay for coastal defences in south east england globally it is widely acknowledged that constructing hard engineered coastal defences is both financially and environmentally unsustainable here we seek to investigate the willingness of residents in rapidly eroding coastal zones to contribute towards the costs of constructing and maintaining such structures the originality of this paper is that it provides one of the first analyses of the influence of social capital parameters social trust institutional trust social reciprocity and social networks on respondents willingness to pay wtp fieldwork for the study was conducted in romney marsh a low lying coastal area of south east england the findings have substantive public policy implications for coastal management first is that we demonstrate that while social and institutional trust exerts a positive influence on wtp the presence of social networks militates against wtp secondly while the study found 45 6 of respondents were willing to pay an average monthly premium of 3 53 a high level of refusal to pay was evident among respondents thirdly even among those respondents willing to pay disagreement was expressed over the political administrative level at which a coastal defence tax should be collected

decomposition of warm glow for multiple stakeholders stated choice valuation of shellfishery policy a monetary valuation study of marine management in the dutch wadden sea the largest natural area of the netherlands is presented the study is motivated by a conflict between shellfisheries and large populations of birds that forage on cockles different management scenarios are valued using multiple stakeholders namely dutch citizens local residents tourists policy makers and natural scientists a considerable difference in willingness to pay wtp between these groups is found in addition the influence of motivational profiles is examined estimates confirm the presence of two such motivations namely material and moral warm glow these allow for decomposition and correction of the wtp estimates

public support for reducing us reliance on fossil fuels investigating household willingness to pay for energy research and development abstract in order to reduce future dependence on foreign oil and emissions of co2 how much would us households be willing to pay annually to support increased energy research and development r d activities designed to replace fossil fuels does it matter whether the r d includes nuclear energy options we explore these questions using data from a unique set of national telephone and internet surveys using a national advisory referendum format the contingent valuation method is applied to estimate annual household willingness to pay wtp for us household support of a national energy research and development fund erdf for investments in energy sources not reliant on fossil fuels while accounting for the level of un certainty in voting responses the wtp modeling includes a comparison of both classic maximum likelihood estimation mle and bayesian analysis evidence indicates that mle and bayesian analysis achieve similar statistical inference while the bayesian analysis provides a narrower confidence interval around estimated wtp

off season tourists and the cultural offer of a mass tourism destination the case of rimini abstract this paper assesses the potential implications on off season tourism of enhancing the cultural offer of rimini a popular italian seaside holiday destination hosting about 12 million overnight stays per year since more than 9 million of these stays are concentrated in the summer season in the last 20 years rimini has been undergoing a policy of seasonality smoothing which mainly pivots around business and cultural tourism this assessment has been carried out through discrete choice experiments submitted to a sample of about 800 tourists who visited rimini outside the summer months since tourism can be viewed as a composite good which overall utility depends on how the component characteristics are arranged the choice experiments allow to disentangle the importance and the willingness to pay of tourists for different attributes of the holiday the choice model incorporates a number of possible changes to actual tourism features which are also the subject of public debate including them in hypothetical alternative holiday packages the conditional logit analysis of the choice experiments can highlight any synergy or trade off between cultural and business tourism results suggest that business and leisure tourists share many features related to the use of the territory while there are important trade offs between these two groups and cultural tourists since business tourists have a higher willingness to extend their stay a softer budget and their demand is also complementary to the demand of summer tourists brau scorcu vici 2009 from the destination point of view investing in this market segment would be the best option although a second best however cultural tourists share with the local population of rimini many aspects of the demand of territory figini castellani vici 2009 hence cultural tourism can play a fundamental role in the intermediate season as a tool for smoothing seasonality to diversify investments and to give value to the city s cultural heritage

accounting for local impacts of photovoltaic farms the application of two stated preferences approaches to a case study in portugal abstract renewable energy sources for electricity generation are unequivocally more environmentally friendly than the traditional sources but are not impact free given the potential for solar photovoltaic energy to contribute to the energy mix in some countries it is timely to carefully consider the potential environmental costs of operation of photovoltaic farms which are experienced by the local population while the general benefits accrue to all we apply the contingent valuation method to a sample of local residents close to three selected photovoltaic farms in portugal also we design a discrete choice experiment to elicit the valuation of specific adverse impacts of electricity generation through photovoltaic energy by national residents our results show that the value elicited in the vicinity of the photovoltaic farms is non negligible on the other hand national residents ponder the trade offs implied by the choice sets and value positively the different adverse local impacts both of these estimates in conjunction or independently can be used to fully account for this often neglected cost of solar energy furthermore we argue that when studying the public acceptance of renewables using stated preference methods explicitly presents the trade offs between negative impacts and costs contributing to more realistic portrayal of public opinion

exploring the drivers side of the blend wall u s consumer preferences for ethanol blend fuels abstract analysis of stated preferences from over 2300 u s respondents shows that general attitudes nationwide favor the use of ethanol as a motor fuel but a sizeable segment 20 indicated strong unwillingness to buy ethanol blend fuels results from a discrete choice experiment analyzed using mixed logit regressions show that all else constant price per gallon and miles per gallon dominated preferences for fuel attributes but ethanol content made the average consumer more likely to choose a blend fuel findings provide strong evidence of heterogeneity in preferences driven by attitudes but also affected by age and income at a point of price per mile equivalence for ethanol and gasoline in a market where gasoline e20 and e85 were available with no regulatory supply or technological constraints e85 would dominate market share in this case ethanol would account for 56 of volume of motor fuels consumed our results show a high level of consumer substitutability of gasoline with ethanol and willingness to choose high ethanol blend fuels which could help expand ethanol use beyond the current regulatory and technological limits of the blend wall

does ecological economics have a future contradiction and reinvention in the age of climate change abstract this paper addresses the role of neoclassical methodologies in ecological economics and the contradictions these methodologies pose to the field s critical founding principles we first consider robert costanza s treatment of nicholas stern s global deal and then survey climate change related articles published in this journal over the past five years this survey reveals how mainstream neoclassical methodologies dominate discourse and do so by marginalizing more critical political economy analyses this situation imperils the field s founding vision of a no growth steady state it also fails to address the related growth dynamics of capitalism without such a critical treatment the field s formal embrace of methodological pluralism actually entails an ideological empiricism that renders ecological economics theoretically incoherent this situation undermines the field s historical promise as an alternative economic paradigm ecological economics now faces a problematic future its survival in a form faithful to its founding vision will require an explicit choice to address its internal contradictions and reinvent itself in ways relevant to our contemporary context without such a choice ecological economics will likely succumb to an implicit acceptance of the hegemony of mainstream economic methodologies and their pro growth imperatives

modelling recreation demand using choice experiments climbing in scotland this paper is concerned with the use of thechoice experiment method for modelling thedemand for recreation using the example ofrock climbing in scotland we begin byoutlining the method itself including itstheoretical and econometric underpinnings datacollection procedures are then outlined wepresent results from both nested and non nestedmodels and report some tests for theimplications of choice complexity andrationality finally we compare our resultswith a revealed preference data model based onthe same sample of climbers

oligopoly equilibria when firms have local knowledge of demand this paper investigates the existence of oligopoly equilibria when firms arrive through local price experiments at a correct estimation of their demand curves in a neighborhood of a given statu s quo the author provides sufficient conditions for the existence of a local nash equilibrium defined as a point where each firm is at a local maximum of its profit function given the prices charged by th e other firms he also provides two examples one of a duopoly with l ocal nash equilibria but no nash equilibria and the other of a duopol y with no local nash equilibria copyright 1988 by economics department of the university of pennsylvania and the osaka university institute of social and economic research association

designing a payments for ecosystem services pes program to reduce deforestation in tanzania an assessment of payment approaches abstract payments for ecosystem services pes programs aim to improve environmental outcomes by providing direct incentives to land managers for the provision of ecosystem services participation in pes programs is voluntary so effective program design requires careful consideration of farmers preferences this study quantifies such preferences using a choice experiment the study site is the east usambara mountains tanzania an internationally recognized biodiversity hotspot we assess preferences for four payment approaches constant and variable annual cash payments to individual farmers a constant annual cash payment to a village fund on behalf of farmers and an upfront manure fertilizer payment we find that the manure fertilizer payment was statistically significant in motivating farmer participation while the group payment was non significant in addition the relationship between the likelihood of participation and the stringency of conditionality is surprisingly non linear in a test of external validity average willingness to accept wta values are found to be similar to the average opportunity cost of maintaining land uses consistent with conservation objectives

decision making when choices are complex a test of heiner s hypothesis this paper explores heiner s hypothesis concerning a gap between the cognitive ability of decision makers and the difficulty of decisions the c d gap we discuss the implications of decision heuristics for coefficient estimates when uncertainty is faced by decision makers where the level of uncertainty varies with complexity statistical analysis strongly supports the presence of a c d gap and provides evidence supporting the use of decision heuristics the results of both direct and indirect methods suggest that mixed decision strategies may be used we also find that complexity effects can have important implications for welfare analysis

considering all microstructure effects the extension of a trade indicator model by considering various market microstructure effects this letter proposes a comprehensive trade indicator model incorporating trade duration order sizes bid ask spreads and market depth into a unified framework examining the intraday price behavior of the kospi200 futures market we find that i fast trading indicates informed trading ii stealth trading does not prevail iii order processing costs reach economies of scale and iv liquidity significantly affects investors order submission decisions in the highly liquid market

using contingent valuation to explore willingness to pay for renewable energy a comparison of collective and voluntary payment vehicles abstract this study uses a split sample dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey of 1574 u s residents to explore willingness to pay wtp for renewable energy under collective and voluntary payment vehicles and under government and private provision of the good we also evaluate the impact of participation expectations on stated wtp we find some evidence that when confronted with a collective payment mechanism respondents state a somewhat higher wtp than when voluntary payment mechanisms are used similarly private provision of the good elicits a somewhat higher wtp than does government provision we also find that contingent valuation responses are strongly correlated with expectations for the wtp of others our results shed light on strategic response behavior and the incentive compatibility of different cv designs and offer practical insight into u s household preferences for how to support renewable energy

do environmental benefits matter evidence from a choice experiment among house owners in germany residential buildings strongly contribute to global co2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating particularly in industrialised countries within the eu decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy as its emissions are not covered by the eu ets we conducted a choice experiment concerning energy retrofits for existing houses in germany in the experiment the approximately 400 sampled house owners could either choose a modern heating system or an improved thermal insulation for their home we used standard and mixed logit specifications to analyse the choice data we found environmental benefits to have a significant impact on choices of heating systems however they played no role in terms of insulation choices based on the estimated mixed logit model we further obtained willingness to pay wtp measures for co2 savings

political affiliation and willingness to pay an examination of the nature of benefits and means of provision non market techniques are widely used for valuing environmental goods and services recent articles obtain results showing respondents to the right of the political spectrum are significantly less likely to vote in favour of environmental programs that provide public goods through public means in consequence their wtp is lower than that of individuals on the political left we examine whether wtp differs systematically in accordance with political affiliation by using data from three stated preference surveys we obtain results similar to the previous literature from only one survey our other two surveys employ different contexts that change the nature of the benefits from the good and or its provision mechanism the first of these finds no significant differences in wtp by respondent political affiliation and the second finds that respondents on the right of the political spectrum have statistically higher wtps for a good when it is privately provided than under collective provision our results provide further support that context matters and that preferences elicited from surveys for environmental goods are not necessarily independent of the means by which the good is provided

is there price discovery in equity options abstract we use tick by tick quote data for 39 liquid us stocks and options on them and we focus on events when the two markets disagree about the stock price in the sense that the option implied stock price obtained from the put call parity relation is inconsistent with the actual stock price option market quotes adjust to eliminate the disagreement while the stock market quotes behave normally as if there were no disagreement the disagreement events are typically precipitated by stock price movements and display signed option volume in the direction that tends to eliminate the disagreements these results show that option price quotes do not contain economically significant information about future stock prices beyond what is already reflected in current stock prices i e no economically significant price discovery occurs in the option market we also find no option market price discovery using a much larger sample of disagreement events based on a weaker definition of a disagreement which verifies that the findings for the primary sample are not due to unusual or unrepresentative market behavior during the put call parity violations

do economic conditions affect public support for environmental policy abstract economic conditions are typically viewed as having an important influence on environmental policy in particular it is widely believed that under adverse economic conditions electorates and governments prioritize economic growth and jobs over costly ecological restraint the empirical evidence for this received wisdom however remains surprisingly contradictory we contribute to this debate by studying a case where the odds of the economy environment trade off claim holding true should be high an emerging economy in severe recession and environmental policy with high short term costs and long term benefits based on a representative survey n 2449 in brazil implemented in late 2015 early 2016 we examine how ego and socio tropic economic conditions both perceived and real affect citizens preferences concerning the mitigation of deforestation and climate change we find no robust evidence for an economy environment trade off the main policy implication is that from a public opinion perspective there is considerable room for ambitious environmental policy even under adverse economic conditions

paying for mitigation a multiple country study a contingent valuation study conducted in china sweden and the united states was used to investigate citizens willingness to pay wtp for reducing co2 emissions we find that a majority of the respondents in all three countries believe that the mean global temperature has increased over the last 100 years and that humans are responsible for the increase the share of americans that believes these statements is smaller and a relatively larger share of americans also believes that nothing can be done to stop climate change sweden has the highest wtp while china has the lowest jel q51 q54

are results from non hypothetical choice based conjoint analyses and non hypothetical recoded ranking conjoint analyses similar conflicting findings have been found in previous research that compared choice based conjoint analysis and ranking conjoint analysis in a public good setting the present paper revisits this issue for a private good in a non hypothetical context using small and large choice sets our results suggest that in a small choice set setting participants preferences and willingness to pay are similar across the two conjoint analysis formats however in large choice sets a divergence between the two conjoint analysis formats emerges hence the two conjoint analysis formats can only be used interchangeably in small choice sets not in large choice sets

us consumers willingness to pay for green electricity abstract we analyze us consumers demand for environmental attributes of deregulated residential electricity services using results from a survey designed to elicit consumers willingness to pay for such attributes and using results from a hedonic analysis of actual price premiums charged for green electricity in several deregulated markets survey results suggest that many population segments are willing to pay for decreased air emissions even if there is no alteration in fuel source furthermore several groups are willing to pay significantly more when emissions reductions stem from increased reliance upon renewable fuels the hedonic analysis suggests that several product features not considered in the survey help explain real price premiums including fuel mix from newly created renewable generation capacity green e certification brand name and state of offer while survey and hedonic results are not easily compared due to limitations of the survey both point to similar values for key environmental attributes though the survey results are likely to overstate actual willingness to pay in sum the results suggest that consumer driven purchases can in part support the future of renewable generation capacity in the united states though reliance upon other policy alternatives may be needed if energy prices spike

random preferences towards bioenergy environmental externalities a case study of woody biomass based electricity in the southern united states article i nfo this paper contrasts alternate methodological approaches of investigating public preferences the random parameter logit rpl where tastes and preferences of respondents are assumed to be heterogeneous and the conditional logit cl approach where tastes and preferences remain fixed for individuals we conducted a choice experiment to assess preferences for woody biomass based electricity in arkansas florida and virginia reduction of co2 emissions and improvement of forest habitat by decreasing risk of wildfires and pest outbreaks were presented to respondents as attributes of using green electricity the results indicate that heterogeneous preferences might be a better fit for assessing preferences for green electricity all levels of both attributes were positive contributors to welfare but they were no statistically significant respondents expressed a positive mean marginal willingness to pay wtp for each attribute level the total wtp for green electricity per kilowatt hour was 0 049 kwh or 40 5 per capita year 1 when converted into future total annual expenditures

equilibrium prices in the bertrand and cournot oligopolies abstract the equilibrium prices for the bertrand and cournot oligopolies with product differentiation are compared if all firms have linear demand and cost functions and if in addition the jacobian matrix of the demand functions has a dominant negative diagonal the cournot equilibrium prices are not lower than the bertrand ones the general condition for the comparison of the bertrand and cournot equilibrium prices can be derived even if the nonlinearity is involved in the cost and or demand functions

elicitation formats and the wta wtp gap a study of climate neutral foods we conduct a field valuation experiment where we vary the valuation method contingent valuation vs inferred valuation as well as the payment format dichotomous choice vs payment card willingness to accept and willingness to pay valuations are elicited in a within subjects design for foods with climate neutral labels we find a similar gap for valuations elicited with the contingent or the inferred valuation method however we also find that the gap can be muted by using a payment card elicitation format

property rights regimes in complex fishery management systems a choice experiment application the tonle sap wetland fishery was previously divided into 3 different management zones for conservation open access fishing and private fishing rights to the private fishing zone involved auctions for exclusive rights to temporarily designated plots this paper aims to explore the auction based system by investigating how this fishery management system affects different groups of small scale fishermen and how different characteristics of the fishing lots affect the bidding a choice experiment approach was used to model fishermen s choices in a hypothetical auction market by offering fishermen the choice between purchasing different potential fishing lots and a no purchase option implying fishing only in the communal fishing grounds the preferred latent class model with two segments of fishermen showed that the bidding behavior of the more privileged group out competes the other group irrespective of the lot characteristics this result suggests that it is unlikely that the redesign of the auction system itself would be an effective way of securing access to fishing resources for the two observed groups of fishermen this implies that open access fishing grounds and or other regulations may also be needed in future management as they serve an important role for the poorer segments

choice modelling approaches a superior alternative for environmental valuation in this paper we examine some popular choice modelling approaches to environmental valuation which can be considered as alternatives to more familiar valuation techniques based on stated preferences such as the contingent valuation method a number of choice modelling methods are consistent with consumer theory and its focus on an attribute based theory of value permits a superior representation of many environmental management contexts however choice modelling surveys can place a severe cognitive burden upon respondents and induce satisficing rather than maximising behavioural patterns in this framework we seek to identify the best available choice modelling alternative and investigate its potential to solve some of the major biases associated with standard contingent valuation we then discuss its use in the light of policy appraisal needs within the eu an application to the demand for rock climbing in scotland is provided as an illustration

on the efficiency of bertrand and cournot equilibria with product differentation in a differentiated products setting with n varieties it is shown under certain regularity conditions that if the demand structure is symmetric and bertrand and cournot equilibria are unique then prices and profits are larger and quantities smaller in cournot than in bertrand competition and as n grows both equilibria converge to the efficient outcome at a rate of at least 1n if bertrand reaction functions slope upwards and are continuous then even with an asymmetric demand structure given any cournot equilibrium price vector one can find a bertrand equilibrium with lower prices in particular if the bertrand equilibrium is unique then it has lower prices than any cournot equilibrium

external benefits of waste to energy in korea a choice experiment study abstract the korean government has planned to expand a variety of waste to energy wte facilities in order to reduce waste disposal decrease the crude oil imports and mitigate greenhouse gases ghgs emissions one response to this concern is to measure the external benefits of wte to this end this study attempts to apply a choice experiment ce to four attributes or types of benefits such as the improvement of energy security reduction of ghg emissions job creation and extension of landfill life expectancy a survey of 500 households was undertaken in seoul korea the trade offs between price and the four attributes for selecting a preferred alternative are considered in the ce survey and a marginal willingness to pay mwtp estimate for each attribute is derived a nested logit nl model is employed in this study rather than a multi nomial logit mnl model since two specification tests indicate that the nl model outperforms the mnl model the estimation results for the nl model show that the mwtps for a 1 increase in energy security a 1 reduction in ghg emissions the creation of 10 000 new jobs and the doubling of landfill life expectancy as a result of expanding wte facilities is estimated to be krw 437 usd 4 5 1763 1 5 598 0 5 and 89 0 1 per household per month respectively the findings can provide policy makers with useful information for evaluating and planning wte policies and projects

cost benefit analysis and environmental policy the use of cost benefit analysis cba in british environmental policy has gone through several stages early applications of cba tended to ignore environmental impacts altogether leave them for a subsidiary impact analysis or provide only a partial monetization of impacts currently cba is the subject of renewed interest in government departments in the environment agency and among other agencies providing guidance and advice to government while the amount of cba being undertaken has increased its influence on policy making is open to question obstacles remain much cba is expensive and this means that benefits transfer is widely regarded as essential currently however the validity of much benefits transfer is questionable other problems arise from misunderstandings about the nature of economic values and the links to individuals self interest and from concerns that cba results will crowd out flexibility in decision making especially the likely context of multiple political objectives over and above economic efficiency none the less cba has begun to have influence in the setting of environmental taxes and alternative decision rules appear to suffer as many if not more shortcomings as those faced by cba copyright 1998 by oxford university press

information and effort in contingent valuation surveys application to global climate change using national internet samples this contingent valuation study investigates the issues of information access and respondent effort and is based on a series of national internet samples the focus is on a split sample treatment basic information bi versus enhanced information ei in the latter significantly expanded information is provided about global climate change and the kyoto protocol using a referendum format we compare the treatment effect bi versus ei on willingness to pay wtp we develop measures of respondent effort in accessing optional information through the technology of web based surveys and jointly model effort and wtp using a simultaneous estimation approach results support the use of the joint modeling approach for objective measures of respondent effort and wtp respondent effort is shown to be positively and significantly related to wtp however use of the optional menu is rather modest counts of pages and time spent and is highly variable both across pages and respondents

monetized value of the environmental health and resource externalities of soy biodiesel abstract this study monetizes the life cycle environmental damage human health risk and resource depletion externalities associated with the production and use of biodiesel fuels from soybean feedstock applying a framework that couples life cycle damage measurements with social preferences elicited from a conjoint choice experiment allows for comparison of petrodiesel and biodiesel s external damages the results of the study reveal that production and consumption of soybean based biodiesels produce improvements in environmental health and resource impacts of 0 27 per gallon relative to petrodiesel for a 20 blend and 3 14 per gallon for a 100 blend

using conjoint analysis to derive estimates of compensating variation abstract we use several approaches to derive estimates of hicksian compensating variation from conjoint ratings data the different estimation approaches produced mixed results with respect to consistency with utility theory statistical significance of key variables magnitude of welfare estimates and confidence bounds on welfare estimates these findings suggest conjoint analyses are not a panacea for the problems being debated regarding contingent valuation and travel cost methodologies and conjoint questions appear to share many of the advantages and disadvantages associated with dichotomous choice contingent valuation questions

anything goes with heterogeneous but not always with homogeneous oligopoly abstract corchon and mas colell 1996 on the stability of best reply and gradient systems with applications to imperfectly competitive models economics letters 51 59 65 showed that in heterogeneous oligopoly almost everything is possible in order to obtain a similar result for homogeneous oligopoly either one needs an externality in the cost function or the reaction correspondences should fulfill a special condition

preferences for improved cook stoves evidence from rural villages in north india abstract because emissions from solid fuel burning in traditional stoves impact global climate change the regional environment and household health there is today real interest in improved cook stoves ics nonetheless surprisingly little is known about what households like about these energy products we report on preferences for biomass burning ics attributes in a large sample of 2120 rural households in north india a global hotspot for biomass fuel use and the damages that such use entails households have a strong baseline reliance and preference for traditional stoves a preference that outweighs the 10 and 5 willingness to pay wtp for realistic 33 reductions in smoke emissions and fuel needs on average respectively preferences for stove attributes are also highly varied and correlated with a number of household characteristics e g expenditures gender of household head patience and risk preferences these results suggest that households exhibit cautious interest in some aspects of ics but that widespread adoption is unlikely because many households appear to prefer traditional stoves over ics with similar characteristics the policy community must therefore support a reinvigorated supply chain with complementary infrastructure investments foster experimentation with products encourage continued applied research and knowledge generation and provide appropriate incentives to consumers if ics distribution is to be scaled up

rural versus urban preferences for renewable energy developments development of renewable energy resources such as wind farms and hydro electric schemes are being promoted as a new method of expanding and diversifying employment in rural areas however such energy projects are associated with a range of environmental impacts which might be detrimental to other economic activities such as those based on nature tourism the authors use a choice experiment to quantify peoples preferences over environmental and employment impacts that may result from the deployment of renewable energy projects in rural areas of scotland focussing in particular on any differences between the preferences of urban and rural dwellers and on heterogeneity within these groups rural and urban households are shown to have different welfare gains which are dependent on the type of renewable energy technology and on the scale of project under consideration

is cultural heritage really important for tourists a contingent rating study in this article we present the results of a contingent rating study carried out on a sample of tourisits visiting scicli a sicilian town known for its baroque heritage in particular we focus on different attributes of tourism products namely season accommodation and cultural heritage to study how much each of these attributes weights in tourists preferences we also study how the socio demographic characteristics of people affect their evaluation of the different attributes of tourism products the heritage endowment appears to be far from being the most important factor this result is consistent across different socio demographic subgroups of interviewed persons

valuing climate protection through willingness to pay for biomass ethanol abstract this study uses a multi part split sample contingent valuation method cvm and fair share fs survey to better understand the public s valuation of mitigating global climate change through its willingness to pay for biomass or cellulosic ethanol in addition to a basic cvm question a related scenario was developed that asked half of the survey respondents to state their fair share cost to lessen a potential food shortage in the next decade also through the expanded use of cellulosic ethanol three alternative biomass feedstocks were assessed farming residues forestry residues and paper mill wastes and municipal solid wastes overall a slightly larger proportion of respondents were wtp extra for cellulosic ethanol in the basic cvm scenario than in the fs scenario though no significant differences were found in the wtp for the different feedstocks bid curve lognormal regression results for the two models were similar supporting the idea that asking a fs rather than a conventional wtp question may be justifiable in some circumstances such as in cases of a national emergency

recreation demand models with taste differences over people we estimate random parameter logit models of anglers choice of fishing site the models generalize logit by allowing coefficients to vary randomly over anglers rather than being fixed the models do not exhibit the restrictive independence from irrelevant alternatives property of logit and can represent any substitution pattern estimation explicitly accounts for the fact that the variation in coefficients over anglers induces correlation in unobserved utility over trips by the same angler willingness to pay for improved fish stock and the value to anglers of specific sites are calculated from the models and compared with the estimates obtained from a standard logit model

the neighbor effect simulating dynamics in consumer preferences for new vehicle technologies abstract understanding consumer behaviour is essential in designing policies that efficiently increase the uptake of clean technologies over the long run expert opinion or qualitative market analyses have tended to be the sources of this information however greater scrutiny on governments increasingly demands the use of reliable and credible evidence to support policy decisions while discrete choice research and modeling techniques have been applied to estimate consumer preferences for technologies these methods often assume static preferences this study builds on the application of discrete choice research and modeling to capture dynamics in consumer preferences we estimate canadians preferences for new vehicle technologies under different market assumptions using responses from two national surveys focused on hybrid gas electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles the results support the relevance of a range of vehicle attributes beyond the purchase price in shaping consumer preferences towards clean vehicle technologies they also corroborate our hypothesis that the degree of market penetration of clean vehicle technologies is an influence on people s preferences the neighbor effect finally our results provide behavioural parameters for the energy economy model cims which we use here to show the importance of including consumer preference dynamics when setting policies to encourage the uptake of clean technologies

comparing cournot and bertrand in a homogeneous product market abstract this paper examines some general notions relating to the comparison of cournot and bertrand equilibrium outcomes results obtained by vives in this connection are reconsidered in a homogeneous product market and it is shown that these results are sensitive to the market sharing rules it is found that the results are always true under those market sharing rules which have the property of including the competitive equilibrium in the set of bertrand equilibria for example the capacity sharing rule if however the sharing rule does not have this property for example the equal sharing rule then the results referred to above may not hold when costs are asymmetric journal of economic literatureclassification numbers l13

benefits of participating in contingent valuation mail surveys and their effects on respondent behavior a panel analysis abstract we investigated the fringe benefits of participating in contingent valuation mail surveys and their effects on respondents answers a two wave panel survey evaluating japan s anti global warming policies was conducted one sample was randomly assigned to either of two survey treatment groups with different survey loads factor analyses of answers distinguished the survey fringe benefit factor from the environmental concern factor the correlation between the two factors was smaller for the heavy load group than for the light load group estimations of structural equation models showed that survey participation became higher when the survey fringe benefit factor scored higher this tendency was found regardless of the survey load level structural equation models did not confirm a positive correlation between the survey fringe benefit factor and the consistency of wtp answers across survey waves however a logistic regression of the answers from the heavy load group revealed a positive correlation between the consistency of wtp answers and the level of perception of the survey as a good cause which was highly correlated to the fringe benefit factor in the previous factor analyses this positive relationship was not detected for the light load group

assessing the potential demand for biofuel by combining economics and psychology a focus on proximity applied to jatropha oil in africa abstract bio energy demand is known to be influenced by geographical origin and social equity this paper aims to highlight the influence of the proximity between biomass production and energy consumption on the demand for alternative bio fuels in the context of burkina faso we explore potential demand for jatropha oil jatropha curcas as a diesel substitute among engine owners survey data are based on a between groups design one group of respondents experiencing a local supply chain while the other a global one results show that proximity has a significant effect on potential demand itself and on the formation and strength of beliefs regarding jatropha oil in a local supply chain context the demand is superior and seems to be guided more by a certain economic and technical rationality conversely the prospect of a jatropha oil produced outside the village restrains demand and this latter is more determined by contextual factors and social interaction our analysis confirms that demand does not only depend on technical and economic factors such as price but also on the integration of the biomass production and processing in the socioeconomic life of local rural populations understanding demand construction and assessing underlying beliefs are key success factors for bio energy projects