multivariate count data regression models with individual panel data from an on site sample the purpose of this paper is to consider the problem of controlling for on site sampling in the context of a system or panel of demand equations specifically in the context of recreation demand we are concerned with the situation in which survey respondents are asked to provide information not only about the actual trips to a specific site observed behavior but also their anticipated trips either under current conditions or given price and quality changes a multivariate poisson log normal mpln model and a seemingly unrelated negative binomial sunb model are used to jointly model the observed and contingent behavior data and to correct for on site sampling

models for referendum data the structure of discrete choice models for contingent valuation abstract in 1979 bishop and heberlein introduced an appealing variant of the contingent valuation method which required only yes or no responses hanemann developed a utility theoretic interpretation of the yes no responses which has helped popularize the approach recently cameron has offered another interpretation also utility theoretic which she argues is more general than the hanemann random utility model this paper compares the deterministic models suggested by hanemann and cameron showing them to be dual to each other it shows that correct specification of either function must exclude endogenous variables such as quantity demanded it also demonstrates that using utility theoretic models allows one to compare travel cost models and contigent valuation models on the basis of their implied behavior not on the unobservable surplus or variation measure

minimum variance hedging of bitcoin inverse futures we formulate an optimal hedging problem of bitcoin inverse futures under the minimum variance framework we obtain the optimal hedging strategy in closed forms for both short and long hedges and co

arbitrary values good causes and premature verdicts abstract this paper offers an alternative interpretation of the conclusions kahneman and knetsch propose based on two contingent valuation cvm surveys the evaluation argues that while framing is important to cvm estimates the design implementation and empirical findings reported from these surveys do not support their judgments moreover with the exception of temporal embedding conventional economic descriptions of individual behavior can explain the response patterns that they suggest are at variance with standard value theory

industrial pollution in economic development the environmental kuznets curve revisited abstract using new international data this paper tests the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis for industrial water pollution we measure the effect of income growth on three determinants of pollution the share of industry in national output the share of polluting sectors in industrial output and end of pipe eop pollution intensities per unit of output in the polluting sectors we find that the industry share of national output follows a kuznets type trajectory but the other two determinants do not when combined our results imply rejection of the ekc hypothesis for industrial water pollution it rises rapidly through middle income status and remains roughly constant thereafter

decoupling of emissions and gdp evidence from aggregate and provincial chinese data abstract we provide a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between greenhouse gas ghg emissions and gdp in china using both aggregate and provincial data the trend or kuznets elasticity is about 0 6 for china higher than that in advanced countries but below that of major emerging markets the elasticity is somewhat lower for consumption based emissions than for production based emissions providing mild evidence consistent with the pollution haven hypothesis the kuznets elasticity is much lower for the last three decades than for the three previous decades suggesting a longer term trend toward decoupling as china has become richer further evidence of this comes from provincial data richer provinces tend to have smaller kuznets elasticities than poorer ones in addition to the trend relationship we find that there is a cyclical relation also holding in china

is bitcoin really untethered this paper investigates whether tether a digital currency pegged to the u s dollar influenced bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices during the 2017 boom using algorithms to analyze blockchain data we find that purchases with tether are timed following market downturns and result in sizable increases in bitcoin prices the flow is attributable to one entity clusters below round prices induces asymmetric autocorrelations in bitcoin and suggests insufficient tether reserves before month ends rather than demand from cash investors these patterns are most consistent with the supply based hypothesis of unbacked digital money inflating cryptocurrency prices

rates of time preference and consumer valuations of automobile safety and fuel efficiency this article estimates hedonic price models for automobiles using a data set on almost 3 000 households from the u s department of energy residential transportation energy consumption survey the standard hedonic models are generalized to recognize the role of discounting of fuel efficiency and safety yielding an estimated rate of time preference ranging from 11 to 17 percent this range includes the prevailing rate of interest for car loans in 1988 and is consequently consistent with market rates purchasers exhibit an implicit value of life ranging from 2 6 to 3 7 million which is within the range found in the labor market as well as other market contexts the model also estimates a significant price effect for auto injury risks and fuel efficiency

asymmetric effects of the business cycle on carbon dioxide emissions abstract long term carbon dioxide emissions forecasts rely on the assumption that the economic growth rate is constant over long time horizons and exclude the business cycle thereby ignoring a fundamental component of the macroeconomy this paper considers how the business cycle affects emissions forecasts and shows the implicit assumption in current forecasts that the elasticity of emissions is constant with respect to gdp is wrong in the united states emissions fall more sharply when gdp declines than they rise when gdp increases this is partly due to a decrease in industrial energy intensity as gdp declines a simulation shows that accounting for the business cycle results in 5 lower cumulative emissions through 2050 relative to the baseline forecast

booms busts and heavy tails the story of bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets abstract we develop bespoke rational bubble models for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies that incorporate both heavy tails and the probability of a complete collapse in asset prices empirically we present robustified evidence of bubbles in bitcoin and ethereum theoretically we show that liquidity risks may generate heavy tails in bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets even in the absence of bubbles dramatic booms and busts can occur we thus sound a timely note of caution

another look at the income elasticity of non point source air pollutants a semiparametric approach in this paper a semiparametric model is used to examine the relationship between pollution and income for three non point source pollutants statistical tests reject the quadratic specification in favor of the semiparametric model in all cases however the results do not support the inverted u hypothesis for the pollution income relationship

using revealed preferences to estimate the value of travel time to recreation sites the opportunity value of travel time vtt is one of the most important elements of the total cost of recreation day trips and arguably the most difficult to estimate most studies build upon the theoretical framework proposed by becker 1965 by using a combination of revealed and stated preference data to estimate a value of time which is uniform in all activities and under all circumstances this restriction is relaxed by deserpa s 1971 model which allows the value of saving time to be activity specific we present the first analysis which uses actual driving choices between open access and toll roads to estimate a vtt specific for recreation trips thereby providing a value which conforms to both becker s and deserpa s theoretical models using these findings we conduct a monte carlo simulation to identify generalizable results for subsequent valuation studies our results indicate that 3 4 of the wage rate provides a reasonable approximation of the average vtt for recreation trips while the commonly implemented assumption of 1 3 of the wage rate generates downward biased results

value of time speeding behavior and gasoline prices abstract value of time vot is a key parameter in economics and policy this paper presents an alternative method to estimate vot by analyzing an hourly dataset on drivers speeding behavior as a function of the gasoline price our identification strategy is novel as it is based on the intensive margin in comparison previous studies reveal vot on the extensive margin but choice alternatives have multiple attributes thereby potentially confounding estimates consistent with the range of the prior literature we find a vot of about 50 of the wage rate and analyze sources of bias from accidents and traffic tickets these bias functions suggest that previous stated preference vot estimates are likely downward whereas previous revealed preference estimates are likely upward biased

economic development and co2 emissions a nonparametric panel approach we examine the empirical relation between co2 emissions per capita and gdp per capita during the period 1960 1996 using a panel of 100 countries relying on the nonparametric poolability test of baltagi et al baltagi b h hidalgo j li q 1996 a nonparametric test for poolability using panel data journal of econometrics 75 345 367 we find evidence of structural stability of the relationship we then specify a nonparametric panel data model with country specific effects estimation results show that this relationship is upward sloping nonparametric specification tests do not reject monotonicity but do reject the polynomial functional form which leads to the environmental kuznets curve in several studies

the impact of tether grants on bitcoin abstract in recent years tether issuances or grants have increased significantly which correlated broadly with a significant rise in bitcoin valuation this paper examines the impact of cryptocurrency issuances on subsequent cryptocurrency returns it is argued that as tether is the undisputed stable coin the minting of new tether acts similarly to monetary expansion in cryptocurrency markets inflating the prices of bitcoin we construct a var model and show contrary to investor expectations tether issuances do not impact subsequent bitcoin returns however they do impact traded volumes we also document an increase in tether trading following a subsequent decrease in bitcoin returns

confronting the environmental kuznets curve t he environmental kuznets curve posits an inverted u relationship between pollution and economic development kuznets s name was apparently attached to the curve by grossman and krueger 1993 who noted its resemblance to kuznets s inverted u relationship between income inequality and development in the first stage of industrialization pollution in the environmental kuznets curve world grows rapidly because people are more interested in jobs and income than clean air and water communities are too poor to pay for abatement and environmental regulation is correspondingly weak the balance shifts as income rises leading industrial sectors become cleaner people value the environment more highly and regulatory institutions become more effective along the curve pollution levels off in the middle income range and then falls toward pre industrial levels in wealthy societies the environmental kuznets curve model has elicited conflicting reactions from researchers and policymakers applied econometricians have generally accepted the basic tenets of the model and focused on measuring its parameters their regressions typically fitted to cross sectional observations across countries or regions suggest that air and water pollution increase with development until per capita income reaches a range of 5000 to 8000 when income rises beyond that level pollution starts to decline as shown in the conventional ekc line in figure 1 in developing countries some policymakers have interpreted such results as conveying a message about priorities grow first then clean up numerous critics have challenged the conventional environmental kuznets curve both as a representation of what actually happens in the development process and as a policy prescription some pessimistic critics argue that crosssectional evidence for the environmental kuznets curve is nothing more than a

reply to a comment on three reasons to use annual payments in contingent valuation abstract whitehead 2017 suggests the contingent valuation cv data from 3 egan et al 2015b lacks theoretical validity and has a fat tails problem while also questioning our conclusion that cv surveys using annual payments produce willingness to pay wtp estimates that better match consumer surplus estimates from a travel cost model in this reply we use likelihood ratio tests to show that our cv data is theoretically valid we use the turnbull and kristrom distribution free estimators to show that our cv data generate economically significant wtp estimates with small standard errors finally we apply the sensitivity analyses from our original paper to whitehead s results these sensitivity analyses overwhelmingly support our original conclusion in favor of using annual payments in cv surveys

energy conservation investment do consumers discount the future correctly we argue that the apparently high discount rates attributed to investors making energy conservation investments are not irrational or the result of some market failure rather they may result from an investor recognizing that many conservation investments entail substantial sunk costs in the presence of these costs and uncertainty over future conservation savings consumers should use a higher hurdle rate for investment than if there were no uncertainty simulations suggest that the hurdle rate should be about four times greater than the standard rate an implication of our model is that tax subsidies for the purchase of conservation capital are likely to be ineffective we discuss alternative policy approaches which are more likely to increase energy efficient investment namely mandatory efficiency standards and energy taxes

the impact of the bird flu on public willingness to pay for the protection of migratory birds abstract in this paper we present the results of a unique time series analysis of contingent values and models for migratory bird protection based on an identical contingent valuation cv survey carried out over a three year time period since the first bird flu outbreak in 2003 although there exists no scientific evidence for a direct relationship migratory birds are believed to play an important role in spreading the bird flu virus worldwide the time series analysis allows us to test the temporal stability of stated preferences for migratory bird protection and at the same time examine indirectly the possible impact of increased media attention and public awareness levels regarding the bird flu we test the impact of the bird flu on public willingness to pay wtp for migratory bird protection in the final 2005 survey whilst accounting for procedural variance introduced by sequencing and question ordering effects but we are unable to demonstrate a direct negative relationship a novelty of the study presented here is that respondents in the cv surveys are given the opportunity to pay an annual money amount or a one time off lump sum annual wtp values appear to be significantly higher than one time off wtp values suggesting a negative implicit discount rate self selection bias is an important reason for the observed differences we find that respondents who agree to pay annually differ significantly from respondents who wish to pay a lump sum in terms of their underlying preferences and motivations towards migratory bird protection

willingness to pay and the cost of commitment an empirical specification and test in a static setting willingness to pay for an environmental improvement is equal to compensating variation in a dynamic setting however willingness to pay may also contain a commitment cost in this paper we incorporate the dynamic nature of the value formation process into a stated preference study designed to test whether there is an important dynamic component commitment cost in stated preference values the results clearly indicate that stated preference values can contain commitment costs and that these can be quite large respondents offered the opportunity to delay their purchasing decisions until more information became available were willing to pay significantly less for improved water quality than those facing a now or never decision these results have important consequences for the design and interpretation of stated preference data

what are the consequences of consequentiality abstract we investigate the extent to which dichotomous choice referenda responses are shaped by whether the individual believes the survey itself will ultimately impact policy using survey data from the iowa lakes project we test this supposition specifically we employ a bayesian treatment effect model in which the degree of perceived consequentiality measured as an ordinal response is permitted to have a structural impact on willingness to pay wtp for a hypothetical environmental improvement we test whether the estimated wtp distributions are the same for each value of the ordinal response in our survey data a subsample of individuals were randomly assigned supporting information suggesting that their responses to the questionnaires were important and will have an impact on policy decisions in conjunction with a bayesian posterior simulator we use this source of exogenous variation to identify the structural impacts of consequentiality perceptions on willingness to pay while controlling for the potential of confounding on unobservables we find evidence consistent with a knife edge result namely that the willingness to pay distributions are equal among those believing the survey to be at least minimally consequential and different for those believing that the survey is irrelevant for policy purposes

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

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

on the value of virtual currencies nous construisons un modele d analyse pour cerner les facteurs qui influent sur le taux de change des monnaies virtuelles trois elements importent tout d abord l utilisation actuelle d une monnaie virtuelle comme moyen de paiement ensuite la decision d investisseurs prospectifs d acheter de la monnaie virtuelle et de controler ainsi l offre de ce type de monnaie enfin les facteurs qui determineront ensemble l adoption d une monnaie virtuelle par les consommateurs et son acceptation par les commercants

return and volatility spillovers among cryptocurrencies abstract this paper measures interdependencies among 18 major cryptocurrencies and shows that i bitcoin is the dominant contributor of return and volatility spillovers among all the sampled cryptocurrencies ii return and volatility spillovers have risen steadily over time iii there are spikes in spillovers during major news events regarding cryptocurrencies these findings suggest growing interdependence among cryptocurrencies and by extension a higher degree of contagion risk it may be the case that cryptocurrencies are becoming more integrated albeit this makes for interesting future empirical testing in addition the time varying nature of spillovers reveals a certain dimension of uncertainty regarding the future of these digital currencies

a mire of discount rates delaying conservation payment schedules in a choice experiment studies on the public s implicit discount rate in the willingness to pay for environmental amenities have mostly employed contingent valuation surveys we investigate respondents time preferences using choice experiments with four payment schedules in a split sample design in the context of mire conservation we first examine preference and taste heterogeneity among respondents finding them to a large extent independent of payment schedules next we use an endogenous approach to jointly estimate the implicit discount rates and preferences using choice experiments data we explore exponential and hyperbolic discounting model specifications we find insensitivity to the length of the payment period and support for hyperbolic discounting furthermore we provide policy relevant valuation results concerning mire conservation

three reasons to use annual payments in contingent valuation surveys convergent validity discount rates and mental accounting abstract we present three arguments for using ongoing annual payments in contingent valuation cv surveys that estimate the benefit of a long lasting environmental improvement first by matching the duration of the payments with the duration of the environmental benefits survey respondents are spared from performing complicated present value calculations second willingness to pay wtp estimates from cv surveys that include ongoing annual payments best match wtp estimates obtained using travel cost surveys third respondents are less likely to face binding mental budget constraints with ongoing annual payments than with a larger one time payment in addition respondents discount rates may be estimated by collecting non hypothetical individual time preference data as part of the valuation survey

volatility and return jumps in bitcoin abstract in this article we are interested in understanding the dynamics of bitcoin daily returns and volatility cryptocurrencies have very high unconditional volatility and are subject to sudden massive price swings we start with a standard log normal stochastic volatility model then explore two formulations which incorporate discontinuous jumps to volatility and returns jumps to volatility are permanent while jumps to mean returns have contemporaneous effects only results point to two high volatility periods the first from late 2013 to early 2014 likely associated to the mt gox incident the second covers the year of 2017 peaking on december likely driven by increased popular attention jumps to mean returns are specially relevant to capture large price variations mostly negative associated with formative events in cryptocurrency markets such as hacks and unsuccessful fork attempts

the determinants of atmospheric so2 concentrations reconsidering the environmental kuznets curve this analysis explores the effects of income and the spatial intensity of economic activity on the atmospheric concentration of sulfur dioxide the results indicate that there is a u shaped relation between income and atmospheric concentration of so2 and an inverted u shaped relation between the spatial intensity of economic activity and so2 concentrations these results suggest that the spatial intensity of economic activity rather than income provides the impetus for policies and technologies that reduce so2 emissions based on this result the atmospheric concentration of so2 in developing nations may decline faster than indicated by previous analyses the potential for this decline depends on the rate at which income grows relative to population the trade off between the effects of income gains and the spatial intensity of economic activity on the atmospheric concentration of so2 is consistent with the notion that some environmental problems can be ameliorated by slowing population growth and increasing income levels

a test for parameter homogeneity in co2panel ekc estimations this paper casts doubt on empirical results based on panel estimations of an inverted u relationship between per capita gdp and pollution using a new dataset for oecd countries on carbon dioxide emissions for the period 1960 1997 we find that the crucial assumption of homogeneity across countries is problematic decisively rejected are model specifications that feature even weaker homogeneity assumptions than are commonly used furthermore our results challenge the existence of an overall environmental kuznets curve for carbon dioxide emissions

is the korean public willing to pay for a decentralized generation source the case of natural gas based combined heat and power abstract natural gas ng based combined heat and power chp plants can be installed near electricity consuming areas and do not require large scale and long distance power transmission facilities this paper attempts to assess the public s additional willingness to pay wtp for substituting consumption of a unit of electricity generated from nuclear power plant currently a dominant power generation source in korea with that produced from ng based chp plant in terms of decentralized generation using the contingent valuation cv method to this end a cv survey of 1 000 households was implemented the results show that the mean additional wtp for substituting nuclear power plant by ng based chp plant is estimated to be krw 55 3 usd 0 047 per kwh of electricity which is statistically significant at the 1 level this value amounts to 44 7 of the average price for electricity krw 123 69 usd 0 106 in 2015 which implies that the public are ready to shoulder a significant financial burden to achieve the substitution moreover the value can be interpreted as an external cost of nuclear power generation relative to ng based chp generation or as an external benefit of ng based chp generation relative to nuclear power generation with a view to decentralized generation

liquidity uncertainty and bitcoin s market microstructure abstract this paper provides a novel measure of liquidity uncertainty for bitcoin using bid ask spread data from bitfinex one of the largest and most liquid bitcoin exchanges this measure can be used to analyze liquidity developments in bitcoin exchanges or to gauge the immediacy associated with buying or selling bitcoin it then proceeds to identify what aspects of bitcoin s market microstructure can explain the time series behavior of this liquidity uncertainty the estimation results are based on a markov regime switching model that captures episodes of high and low liquidity uncertainty for bitcoin over the period from october 2013 to march 2018

is there an environmental kuznets curve for deforestation abstract this paper examines the relationship between deforestation and gross domestic product gdp per capita in particular whether an inverted u relationship indicative of worsening then improving deforestation exists between them we note that previous work has used models with restrictive assumptions and recommend a more flexible random coefficients specification which allows for a greater degree of cross country heterogeneity empirical results using data for 76 developing countries between 1961 1992 suggest that the inverted u shaped relationship observed in other studies does not appear to be an empirical regularity with our less restrictive specification statistical tests indicate that this specification is supported by the data we argue that such results are not surprising in view of the wide diversity of physical and social characteristics that exist across countries

the environmental kuznets curve semi parametrically revisited this paper re examines the existence of an environmental kuznets curve ekc across countries using a semi parametric regression estimator which places no restrictions on the functional form our results using cross country panel data on sulfur and carbon dioxide strongly suggest that the relationship between wealth and environmental degradation is not bell shaped as suggested by an ekc rather that there is a positive link for the very poorest countries and no clear relationship for richer countries

non users willingness to pay for a national park an application and critique of the contingent valuation method bateman i j and langford i h 1997 non users willingness to pay for a national park an application and critique of the contingent valuation method reg studies 31 571 582 a great deal of the ongoing academic debate concerning the contingent valuation cv method has focused upon whether or not the method is suitable for assessing non use values this paper presents results from a study examining non users values for preserving the norfolk broads a wetland area of recognized international importance from the threat of saline flooding discussion of results centres upon the validity of the cv method for eliciting unbiased estimates of non use value a graphical representation of findings from a variety of studies is presented to suggest that such results are logically ordered across goods and valuation scenarios however as the paper concludes logicality and validity are not necessarily synonymous bateman i j et langford i h 1997 la volonte des non usagers de payer les parcs nationaux

specification of driving costs in models of recreation demand existing recreation demand models have paid much attention to the heterogeneous nature of the opportunity cost of time but generally stipulate constant per mile costs in access price specifications this study proposes two alternative approaches to introduce user specific driving costs into recreation demand models the first approach is based on a refined measurement of driving costs based on engineering considerations the second strategy estimates perceived per mile cost as a function of vehicle attributes in an empirical framework we find strong evidence that driving costs are a visitor specific concept and that prescribed and perceived costs differ substantially however welfare measures generated by these alternative specifications are not statistically different from those produced by the standard model in our application of jet skiing in the lake tahoe region

fat tails and truncated bids in contingent valuation an application to an endangered shorebird species a yes response function in a contingent valuation study is said to have fat tails if it has a high and slowly declining yes response rate at high bid levels truncated bids refer to the practice of dropping high bid offers before a yes response rate of near zero is reached this is a common practice in contingent valuation we explore the extent and implications of fat tails and truncated bids in a study of an endangered shorebird species we find among other things that mean willingness to pay is quite sensitive to the highest bid offered so much so that the choice of highest bid nearly dictates outcomes

carbon intensity and economic development 1962 1991 a brief exploration of the environmental kuznets curve the relationship between national carbon dioxide emissions intensity co2 emitted per unit of gross domestic product and level of economic development has changed from essentially linear in 1962 to strongly curvilinear in 1991 the inverted u curve reached statistical significance briefly in the early 1970s and increasingly since 1982 this is the result not of groups of countries passing through stages of development but of efficiency improvements in a small number of wealthy countries combined with worse performance in poor and middle income countries the curvilinear relation is deepening and is likely to persist due to constraints on poorer countries in the world economy

a comment on three reasons to use annual payments in contingent valuation egan corrigan and dwyer 2015 conduct a survey of ohio residents and collect contingent valuation method data for a wetlands restoration project the cvm scenario includes a split sample treatment where payment schedules differ my analysis of these data suggests that there is little evidence of theoretical validity in the data and fat tails is a significant problem

economic growth trade and energy implications for the environmental kuznets curve abstract the environmental kuznets curve ekc hypothesis asserts that pollution follows an inverted u path with respect to economic growth the ekc has been explained in terms of structural changes in the composition of economic output and increased environmental regulation at higher income levels while some authors have incorporated the impact of trade policy orientation on the ekc the impact of the actual movement between countries of goods that embody pollution has not been considered this paper attempts to econometrically quantify the effect using pooled cross country and time series data the ekc hypothesis is examined with respect to commercial energy consumption the source of many serious environmental problems it was found that while both industrializing and industrialized countries have added to their energy requirements by exporting manufactured goods the growth has been substantially higher in the former at the same time industrialized countries have been able to reduce their energy requirements by importing manufactured goods exports of manufactured goods by industrialized countries has thus been an important factor in generating the upward sloping portion of the ekc and imports by industrialized countries have contributed to the downward slope

an alternative model of metcalfe s law for valuing bitcoin abstract this short paper presents a new model of the market capitalization of bitcoin that builds upon a standard model based upon metcalfe s law the model incorporates the logistic diffusion of the innovation which could be extended to capture population and economic factors this model appears to have some improved efficacy over the standard model using this model some areas for future research are briefly discussed

the economics of bitcoin price formation abstractthis is the first article that studies bitcoin price formation by considering both the traditional determinants of currency price e g market forces of supply and demand and digital currencies specific factors e g bitcoin attractiveness for investors and users the conceptual framework is based on the barro 1979 model from which we derive testable hypotheses using daily data for five years 2009 2015 and applying time series analytical mechanisms we find that market forces and bitcoin attractiveness for investors and users have a significant impact on bitcoin price but with variation over time our estimates do not support previous findings that macro financial developments are driving bitcoin price in the long run

optimal taxes on fossil fuel in general equilibrium we analyze a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge model with an externality through climate change from using fossil energy our central result is a simple formula for the marginal externality damage of emissions or equivalently for the optimal carbon tax this formula which holds under quite plausible assumptions reveals that the damage is proportional to current gdp with the proportion depending only on three factors i discounting ii the expected damage elasticity how many percent of the output flow is lost from an extra unit of carbon in the atmosphere and iii the structure of carbon depreciation in the atmosphere thus the stochastic values of future output consumption and the atmospheric co2 concentration as well as the paths of technology whether endogenous or exogenous and population and so on all disappear from the formula we find that the optimal tax should be a bit higher than the median or most well known estimates in the literature we also formulate a parsimonious yet comprehensive and easily solved model allowing us to compute the optimal and market paths for the use of different sources of energy and the corresponding climate change we find coal rather than oil to be the main threat to economic welfare largely due to its abundance we also find that the costs of inaction are particularly sensitive to the assumptions regarding the substitutability of different energy sources and technological progress

the nature of co2 emission kuznets curve this paper reveals that co2 emission kuznets curve merely reflects the peak theory of energy intensity the situation of real energy use should be used as a fundamental stone for both energy and environmental policy making

valuing water quality as a function of water quality measures employing a unique and rich data set of water quality attributes in conjunction with detailed household characteristics and trip information we develop a mixed logit model of recreational lake usage and undertake thorough model specification and fitting procedures to identify the best set of explanatory variables and their functional form for the estimated model our empirical analysis shows that individuals are responsive to the full set of water quality measures used by biologists to identify the impaired status of lakes thus changes in these quality measures are not simply a scientific exercise but they also translate into changes in the recreational usage patterns and well being of individual households willingness to pay wtp estimates are reported based on improvements in these physical measures

a latent class approach to modeling endogenous spatial sorting in zonal recreation demand models a method for incorporating unobserved heterogeneity into aggregate count data frameworks is presented and used to control for endogenous spatial sorting in zonal recreation models the method is based on latent class analysis which has become a popular tool for analyzing heterogeneous preferences with individual data but has not yet been applied to aggregate count data the method is tested using data on backcountry hikers for a southern california study site and performs well for relatively small numbers of classes the latent class model produces substantially smaller welfare estimates compared to a constrained version that assumes homogeneity throughout the population

discrete choice under preference uncertainty an improved structural model for contingent valuation abstract this paper is concerned with discrete choice contingent value estimation in the presence of response errors we attempt to extend the theoretical frameworks developed by hanemann 1984 amer j agric econom 66 332 341 and cameron 1988 j environ econom management 15 355 379 by introducing preference uncertainty with individual respondents we assume that respondents have incomplete knowledge about their true valuation of a nonmarket resource and thus may give wrong yes no answers on whether or not to pay a given bid amount for the resource a post decisional confidence measure for each observed yes no answer is elicited for characterizing the degree of preference uncertainty with the help of this confidence measure we develop an improved structural model for deriving value estimates data from a forest environment valuation survey are used for the empirical estimations

a dual approach to modeling corner solutions in recreation demand abstract the dual approach of lee and pitt to estimating demand systems for which individuals often choose not to consume one or more of the available goods provides a utility consistent framework for estimating preferences over visits to recreation sites because of the complexity of the model however this approach has not been applied in the recreation demand literature this paper provides the first application of the model to recreation demand and develops a methodology for conducting welfare analysis relying on monte carlo integration to derive estimates of compensating variation the methods are applied to the demand for fishing in the wisconsin great lakes region

searching for a kuznets curve in environmental efficiency using kernel estimation abstract the paper constructs environmental efficiency indexes for a sample consisting of high and low income countries using nonparametric production frontier techniques and then establishes an environmental kuznets relationship for environmental efficiency by nadaraya watson kernel estimation methodology

nudging acceptability for wood ash recycling in forests a choice experiment abstract in this paper our objective is to assess the general french population s acceptability of application of wood ash in forests a measure currently not allowed but under consideration by the government the main originality of our approach is that we test how a nudge can be used as an instrument to increase social acceptability conveying objective information regarding ash recycling furthermore although we do not consider it as a welfare measure we show how the estimation of the willingness to pay can be considered as a complement to the more traditional social acceptability measure three nudges were introduced as three treatments in a discrete choice experiment in the first treatment the options with wood ash application were highlighted to indicate to the respondents that they corresponded to pro environmental measures positive framing in the second treatment we changed the wording of the two non status quo options to highlight the recycling aspect of wood ash application in the last treatment we adopted a productive wording to highlight the fact that wood ash application increases wood production treatments in particular positive framing and productive wording influence the willingness to pay but depend on the attitudes of the respondents

joint estimation of discount rates and willingness to pay for public goods abstract we analyze willingness to pay wtp for environmental programs whose time periods of benefit and repayment differ using a net present value framework that identifies parameters of both wtp and personal discount rates respondents to a contingent valuation survey focusing on protection of critical habitat buffer zones for the endangered steller sea lion in alaska were asked their willingness to pay for 1 5 and 15 year repayment periods we jointly estimate the personal discount rates and wtp via maximum likelihood and compare with a model assuming a fixed market discount rate

price manipulation in the bitcoin ecosystem abstract to its proponents the cryptocurrency bitcoin offers the potential to disrupt payment systems and traditional currencies it has also been subject to security breaches and wild price fluctuations this paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the mt gox bitcoin currency exchange in which approximately 600 000 bitcoins btc valued at 188 million were fraudulently acquired during both periods the usd btc exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the usd btc exchange rate in late 2013 when the rate jumped from around 150 to more than 1 000 in two months

co2 response to business cycles new evidence of the largest co2 emitting countries in asia and the middle east abstract this paper examines co2 response to business cycles of six large co2 emitting countries in asia and the middle east namely china india japan iran saudi arabia and south korea by using a markov switching autoregressive models emissions are cyclically more volatile than gdp in a typical country except for iran it is observed that emissions are procyclical in all studied countries except for india but the elasticity of the emission with respect to gdp significantly depends on regimes in japan and south korea elasticity of co2 emissions with respect to gdp during expansions is significantly larger than during recessions in iran and saudi arabia elasticity of co2 emissions with respect to gdp is significantly smaller than 1 but the co2 emissions response to gdp during recessions is significantly larger than during expansions in china elasticity of co2 emissions to gdp is significantly larger than 1 during recessions and normal and co2 emissions response to gdp during recessions is significantly larger than during expansions these results have implications for environmental policy makers the optimal response of pollution abatement costs in japan and south korea should be high low during expansions recessions and in china iran and saudi arabia should be low high during expansions recessions after releasing a positive productivity shock

identifying individual discount rates and valuing public open space with stated preference models an individual s rate of time preference is an important consideration for individuals deciding whether to support a public good since the benefits of a public good often come in the future our study finds individual discount rates from a contingent valuation method cvm question where the time frame of the payment schedule is varied across surveys we find discount rates similar to the rates found in the recent revealed preference and experimental literature of around 30 our cvm question addresses the preservation of additional open space adjacent to a large regional park at the urban fringe of portland oregon

a semiparametric smooth coefficient estimator for recreation demand we introduce a semiparametric smooth coefficient estimator for recreation demand data that allows more flexible modeling of preference heterogeneity we show that our sample of visitors each has an individual statistically significant price coefficient estimate leading to clearly nonparametric consumer surplus and willingness to pay wtp distributions we also show mean wtp estimates that are different in economically meaningful ways for every demographic variable we have for our sample of beach visitors this flexibility is valuable for future researchers who can include any variables of interest beyond the standard demographic variables we have included here and the richer results price elasticities consumer surplus and wtp estimates are valuable to planners and policymakers who can easily see how all these estimates vary with characteristics of the population of interest

sensitivity of contingent valuation to alternative payment schedules insensitivity to payment schedule wherein respondents do not adequately differentiate between a one time payment and a series of payments may be an important but often overlooked factor in the design interpretation and use of contingent valuation studies several contingent valuation experiments involving a familiar private good and a less familiar environmental commodity indicate that although respondents distinguished between lump sum and periodic payment schedules implicit discount rates were very high suggesting that sensitivity to payment schedule is an important subject for further study

willingness to pay and sensitivity to time framing a theoretical analysis and an application on car safety stated preference sp surveys attempt to obtain monetary values for non market goods that reflect individuals true preferences numerous empirical studies suggest that monetary values from sp studies are sensitive to survey design and so may not reflect respondents true preferences this study examines the effect of time framing on respondents willingness to pay wtp for car safety we explore how wtp per unit risk reduction depends on the time period over which respondents pay and face reduced risk in a theoretical model and by using data from a swedish contingent valuation survey our theoretical model predicts the effect to be nontrivial in many scenarios used in empirical applications in our empirical analysis we examine the sensitivity of wtp to an annual and a monthly scenario our theoretical model predicts the effect from the time framing to be negligible but the empirical estimates from the annual scenario are about 70 higher than estimates from the monthly scenario

estimating individual discount rates in denmark a field experiment we estimate individual discount rates with respect to time streams of money using controlled laboratory experiments these discount rates are elicited by means of field experiments involving real monetary rewards the experiments were carried out across denmark using a representative sample of 268 people between 19 and 75 years of age individual discount rates are estimated for various households differentiated by socio demographic characteristics such as income and age our conclusions are that discount rates are constant over the 12 month to 3 year horizons used in these experiments and that discount rates vary substantially with respect to several socio demographic variables hence we conclude that it would be reasonable to assume constant discount rates for specific household types but not the same rates across all households

the environmental kuznets curve does one size fit all abstract this paper uses a new panel data set on state level sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from 1929 1994 to test the appropriateness of the one size fits all reduced form regression approach commonly used in the environmental kuznets curve literature empirical results provide initial evidence that an inverted u shape characterizes the relationship between per capita emissions and per capita incomes at the state level parameter estimates suggest however that previous studies which restrict cross sections to undergo identical experiences over time may be presenting statistically biased results

is there an environmental kuznets curve for sulfur abstract most existing estimates of the environmental kuznets curve ekc for sulfur which use samples of mainly high income countries indicate a maximum emissions turning point at middle to lower high income levels of gdp per capita we use a larger and more globally representative sample than previous sulfur ekc studies we find that sulfur emissions per capita are a monotonic function of income per capita when we use a global sample and an inverted u shape function of income when we use a sample of high income countries a model estimated in first differences results in a monotonic ekc when estimated with both high income and global samples reductions in emissions are time related rather than income related

the personal discount rate evidence from military downsizing programs the military drawdown program of the early 1990s provides an opportunity to obtain estimates of personal discount rates based on large numbers of people making real choices involving large sums the program offered over 65 000 separatees the choice between an annuity and a lump sum payment despite break even discount rates exceeding 17 percent most of the separatees selected the lump sum saving taxpayers 1 7 billion in separation costs estimates of discount rates range from 0 to over 30 percent and vary with education age race sex number of dependents ability test score and the size of payment

protesting and justifying a latent class model for contingent valuation with attitudinal data this article develops a latent class model for estimating willingness to pay wtp for public goods using simultaneously contingent valuation cv and attitudinal data to identify individuals with similar characteristics such as wtp and protest attitudes we find evidence that the answer to the cv question influences the responses to the attitudinal questions in our case this influence reflects rational behavior budget constraint issues and justification biases related to protest reasons such as lack of trust in institutions or fairness issues with respect to the distribution of the burden of preservation the results from our empirical application confirm the importance of accounting for those biases