statistical efficiency of double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation the statistical efficiency of conventional dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys can be improved by asking each respondent a second dichotomous choice question which depends on the response to the first question if the first response is yes the second bid is some amount greater than the first bid while if the first response is no the second bid is some amount smaller this double bounded approach is shown to be asymptotically more efficient than the conventional singlebounded approach using data from a survey of californians regarding their willingness to pay for wetlands in the san joaquin valley we show that in a finite sample the gain in efficiency can be very substantial

implications of bid design and willingness to pay distribution for starting point bias in double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys we examine starting point bias in double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys we investigate 1 the seriousness of the biases for the location and scale parameters of the willingness to pay wtp in the presence of starting point bias 2 whether or not these biases depend on the distribution of wtp and on the bid design and 3 how well a commonly used diagnostic for starting point bias a test of the null that bid set dummies entered in the right hand side of the wtp model are jointly equal to zero performs under various circumstances monte carlo simulations suggest that the effect of ignoring starting point bias depends on the bid design and on the true distribution of wtp a well balanced symmetric bid design may result in very modest biases even when the anchoring mechanism is very strong the power of bid set dummies in detecting starting point bias is low they tend to account for misspecifications in the distribution assumed by the researcher for the latent wtp rather than capturing the presence of starting point bias

willingness to pay for borivli national park evidence from a contingent valuation a study was conducted to survey the residents of bombay and elicit their willingness to pay for the maintainance and preservation of borivli national park bnp using the contingent valuation cv method the cv method has come under considerable criticism on account of biases that are either inherent to or generated by the survey process the present study acknowledges those and adopts techniques to either circumvent or then minimise them the authors pay special attention to hypothetical bias starting point bias embedding effects and part whole biases the authors argue that indeed it is possible to improve the quality of a cv by using special survey as well as statistical techniques so that cv results can be used for the purposes of realistic decision making this validation of the cv becomes an important objective of the study despite india being a developing country with medium to low income levels the evidence suggested that people are willing to pay for preserving environmental amenities having statistically adjusted for embedding and anchoring effects households are willing to pay exclusively for bnp on average rs 7 5 per month for the next five years extrapolating to the city of bombay this amounts to a substantial rs 20 million each month for the next five years or a present discounted value of in excess of rs 1 billion suggesting a strong interest in environmental conservation

estimation using contingent valuation data from a dichotomous choice with follow up questionnaire reply abstract our original article proposed that the two yes no willingness to pay wtp responses produced by this survey format should be viewed as a pair of jointly distributed correlated discrete random variables the comparison model the conventional approach to estimation using these types of data contained a programming error correction alters the results from the comparison model but our original claim that estimation by conventional methods can produce misleading inferences if ours is the appropriate specification still stands this is especially true if negative wtp is precluded when e wtp is calculated

testing for the survey mode effect on contingent valuation data quality a case study of web based versus in person interviews this paper addresses the lack of empirical evaluation of the use of web based surveys in the context of contingent valuation surveys we compare using a case study in person interviews with web based surveys regarding response rate information additivity effects and respondents attitudes towards paying the web based survey had a much lower response 5 1 than the in person interviewing 84 we find the web based contingent valuation surveys to be neither more susceptible to information additivity effects nor more prone to zero protest responses we conclude in favor of the use of web based surveys namely in portugal where the number of internet users is rapidly increasing although further research efforts are required on their use

examining the formation of human capital in entrepreneurship a meta analysis of entrepreneurship education outcomes abstract effective human capital formation through the medium of entrepreneurship education and training eet is of increasing concern for governments as eet is growing rapidly across the world unfortunately there is a lack of consistent evidence showing that eet helps to create more or better entrepreneurs we undertake the first quantitative review of the literature and in the context of human capital theory find that there is indeed support for the value of eet based on 42 independent samples n 16 657 we find a significant relationship between eet and entrepreneurship related human capital assets r w 217 and entrepreneurship outcomes r w 159 the relationship between eet and entrepreneurship outcomes is stronger for academic focused eet interventions r w 238 than for training focused eet interventions r w 151 we find evidence of heterogeneity in many of our correlations and recommend that future studies examine potential moderators to more clearly delineate eet effect sizes we also find a number of methodological weaknesses among the studies analyzed and that those studies with lower methodological rigor are overstating the effect of eet recommendations to improve the quality of future work in the field are provided

incentive incompatibility and starting point bias in iterative valuation questions we test for incentive incompatibility and starting point bias to describe the effects of iterative valuation questions on willingness to pay we compare double triple and multiplebounded models with data from two surveys with similar designs of the valuation questions we find that incentive incompatibility is present in both sets of data and starting point bias is present in one the efficiency of the willingness to pay estimate is improved in only one set of data the potential loss from using iterative questions without controlling for both incentive incompatibility and starting point bias is biased willingness topay estimates

a test of the equality of closed ended and open ended contingent valuations a test is developed to find whether open ended and closed ended contingent valuation mechanisms lead to significantly different results the test is based on joint estimation of willingness to pay responses to open and closed ended questions asked of the same sample of individuals in a public good example individuals do respond differently depending on question format possible explanations include different incentives for strategic behavior and respondents lack of familiarity with the open ended question type no differences in willingness to pay were found in a private good example

the founder s self assessed competence and venture performance abstract a large body of recent research seeks to understand organizational founding and the performance of emerging businesses although much of this research has focused on the characteristics of the business founder there is only mixed support for relationships between founders characteristics and venture performance begley and boyd 1987 gartner 1988 low and macmillan 1988 sexton and bowman 1984 this study is based on research that identifies the entrepreneurial managerial and technical functional functions as three roles that founders must competently enact in order to be successful hofer and sandberg 1987 mintzberg and waters 1982 pavett and lau 1983 schein 1987 effective performance in the entrepreneurial role requires the founder to have the ability to recognize business opportunities and the drive to see firm creation through to fruition hofer and sandberg 1987 timmons et al 1987 effective execution of the managerial role requires conceptual interpersonal and political competence pavett and lau 1983 to be competent in the technical functional role founders must be able to use the tools or procedures required in their specialized field pavett and lau 1983 to measure the competencies necessary for effectiveness in the entrepreneurial managerial and technical functional roles we developed a questionnaire to allow founders to provide self evaluations of their competencies the results provide strong evidence for the reliability of measurement and the validity of the constructs the relationships revealed in this study suggest some preliminary recommendations for potential entrepreneurs career counselors and educators the number of businesses previously initiated and the years spent as an owner manager do not appear to be strongly related to the performance of the venture however the most successful entrepreneurs are strongly convinced of their ability to recognize business opportunity they believe that they have the drive to see the venture through to fruition and report that they subjugate outside interests to the demands of their businesses thus although self assessed proficiency in the entrepreneurial function does not appear to be contingent on the length of previous experience as a founder it does appear to be a necessary component in the development of high performance companies founders of the most successful firms also gave themselves high ratings on the abilities associated with effective performance in the managerial role they had high self evaluation scores on the items measuring organizational and interpersonal skills competence in the managerial role appears to be enhanced by business education and the years of general managerial experience the founders of highly successful firms also evaluated their technical skills highly they believed they were experts in their fields and could use the specialized tools and procedures to produce high quality products and services thus the results indicate that the most successful founders those whose firms show higher levels of growth and earnings rate themselves as competent in the entrepreneurial managerial and technical functional roles they see themselves as competent generalists and in a result that is most gratifying for those in higher education it appears that a business education and experience in general managerial positions lays the ground work for a successful entrepreneurial career

unpacking the uncertainty construct implications for entrepreneurial action abstract uncertainty is central to entrepreneurship however robust and generalizable findings that explain the conditions in which uncertainty may impede or promote entrepreneurial action remain elusive we operationalize uncertainty as a multi dimensional construct composed of state effect and response types of uncertainty milliken 1987 to investigate the relationship between uncertainty and entrepreneurial action we decompose more than 2800 exploitation decision policies nested within a sample of new product decision makers working in entrepreneurial software firms we focus on the primary decision maker s willingness to exploit a given opportunity in the face of varying combinations and manifestations of uncertainty and find that the type of uncertainty experienced influences the willingness to engage in entrepreneurial action differently further we find that differences in how each type of uncertainty is manifested in the environment the scale of exploitation i e large vs small and the entrepreneur s expertise serve to moderate the relationship between uncertainty and action in counter intuitive ways we discuss the implications for both theory and practice

household willingness to pay for expanding fuel cell power generation in korea a view from co2 emissions reduction abstract the fuel cell fc is accepted as the state of the art instrument for reducing co2 emissions in the field of power generation in korea therefore the korean government has planned to expand fc power generation from 565 gwh in 2013 to 13 449 gwh by 2027 this article aims to assess the public value or acceptability of this expansion in terms of reducing co2 emissions to this end we derive the public s additional willingness to pay wtp for the expansion using a contingent valuation survey of 1000 korean households for the purpose of mitigating the response effect in eliciting their wtp and increasing statistical efficiency in analyzing the wtp data we employ a one and one half bounded dichotomous choice question format furthermore we use the spike model so as to model zero wtp responses the mean additional monthly wtp for the expansion is computed to be krw 1407 usd 1 37 per household expanding the value to the national population gives us krw 310 5 billion usd 304 4 million per year we can conclude that korean households are ready to shoulder some of the financial burden of expanding fc power generation to reduce co2 emissions

testing a theoretical model of mortgage demand on uk data mortgage demand is a poorly understood and under researched aspect of the financial behaviour of households this paper tests empirically the basic results of brueckner s model of mortgage demand on uk mortgage market data the choice of mortgage instrument is used to identify impatient debt maximizers and patient borrowers who borrow at intermediate levels thus the research confirms the conditions under which households will use the largest possible mortgage and the circumstances under which savings are invested in the property a unique contribution of the work is the estimation of mortgage demand equations corrected for endogenous housing demand for a single housing finance system where borrowers face different opportunity costs of equity in their owner occupied property allowing a purer test of the theoretical model

yea saying in contingent valuation surveys a number of recent papers have provided estimates of willingness to pay derived in contingent valuation surveys exceeding those revealed in experimental or real life markets one possible explanation for the overestimation of values is the presence of yea saying with the objective of reducing the occurrence of yea saying a new elicitation format referred to as the dissonance minimizing d m format is proposed an empirical comparison of the dm format with the conventional dichotomous choice dc format and the ambivalence reducing polychotomous choice pc format suggested by ready whitehead and blomquist 1995 is made results are encouraging for the dm

validation of empirical measures of welfare change a comparison of nonmarket techniques since the passing of the flood control act of 1936 the attention of many resource economists has been directed towards measuring the benefits and costs of alternative uses of natural resources increasingly it has been recognized that the value of some of these uses is not explicitly determined through market transactions this has led to the focus of much attention upon the development of nonmarket methods to estimate the value of these uses in the 1940s the groundwork for the travel cost method was established by hotelling prewitt 1949 following this in the 1960s davis initiated the basic foundation for bidding methods davis 1963 which were later to be subsumed under the heading of contingent valuation methods brookshire randall and stoll 1980 schulze d arge and brookshire 1981 thayer 1981 both of these methods will be further discussed below in addition to these two methods a third approach the unit day value method has been recognized as acceptable but not preferred for the valuation of recreational uses of water and related land resources dwyer kelley and bowes 1977 u s water resources council 1979 given the existence of alternative methods of estimating the value of resource uses several obvious questions arise one of the first of these is under what circumstances is each method most appropriate existing literature has focussed sufficiently on this question and pointed out limitations of each especially the travel cost method and unit day value methods brookshire ives and schulze 1976 dwyer kelly and bowes 1977 freeman 1979 mcconnell 1975 randall ives and eastman 1977 schulze d arge and brook

willingness to pay for gains and losses in visibility and health two different willingness to pay responses are compared willingness to pay to avoid loss of air quality and willingness to pay to obtain gains in air quality contingent valuation data were used to estimate bid functions for these two types of responses for visibility and health comparison of the estimated models indicates that in addition to magnitude differences gains and losses for visibility and health are affected differently by health status risk perceptions and other risk related variables results for the loss measure are more reliable in terms of variability of response and econometric modeling

an econometric analysis of choice of mortgage design in the united kingdom the research seks to better understand the choice of mortgage design by households in the united kingdom family expenditures survey data is used to test the various hypotheses on the determinants of the choice between an endowment and a repayment mortgage a bivariate probit model with sample selection is estimated to detect any likely selectivity bias arising out of tenure choice the theoretical modelling reflects the behaviour of liquidity constrained households comparing comparative periodic mortgage costs and households concerned with the oppurtunity cost of equity in a property actual choices appear to reflect the impact of nominal interest rates income and cash flow considerations there is little direct evidence that the choice of mortgage repayment vehicle is motivated by portfolio design there is some tentative evidence of supply side pressure on endowment mortgage take up

stated preferences real behaviour and anchoring some empirical evidence we compare different contingent valuation question formats with each other and with observed behaviour for a non monetary estimation task the expected number of kilometers travelled by automobile open ended questions open ended follow up questions dichotomous choice dc questions and double bound dc questions are included the single and double bound dc questions result in an estimated mean about twice as high as the actual value and the open ended mean the dc question overestimation seems to be due to an anchoring effect leading to yea saying behaviour our results about the difference between dc questions and open ended questions is consistent with the pattern observed in contingent valuations studies of the willingness to pay our results indicates that dc questions seem to be associated with a general overestimation problem that is present even for simple non monetary estimation tasks

gender specific starting point bias in choice experiments evidence from an empirical study abstract in this paper we test whether preferences and willingness to pay estimates obtained in a choice experiment study are susceptible to starting point bias as is often the case in dichotomous choice contingent valuation studies on the basis of a multinomial probit model we find that preferences are indeed susceptible to starting point bias in a split sample design our results suggest that varying the price levels displayed in a so called instructional choice set presented prior to the actual preference eliciting choice sets significantly impacts respondents preferences and willingness to pay for protecting danish nature areas from new motorway development in particular our results show that the bias is gender specific only female respondents are significantly affected results further reveal that the impact of the starting point bias decays as respondents evaluate more and more choice sets this supports the discovered preference hypothesis and on the basis of this we suggest a number of ways to potentially mitigate the starting point bias

toward a theory of affordable loss although dozens of empirical studies have been published on effectuation as a whole much work remains to be done on elaborating each principle in more depth based on an exploratory study of seven ventures from the caribbean island of curacao this paper develops an elaborated process model of the affordable loss heuristic in effectuation the model breaks affordable loss into two components ability and willingness and connects these to the concept of loss aversion from prospect theory furthermore these components are encapsulated in a process involving identity affect and resourcefulness leading to the entry stage entrepreneurial investment decision

perceptions versus objective measures of environmental quality in combined revealed and stated preference models of environmental valuation abstract this study examines perceptions and objective attribute measures in discrete choice models of recreation site choice behavior these forms of attribute measurement are examined in individual and combined revealed preference stated preference models our results suggest that the model based on perceptions slightly outperforms the models based on objective attribute measures however issues such as the definition of the choice set and the measurement of welfare present significant challenges when using perceptions data

contingent valuation experiments for strategic behavior abstract the existence and extent of strategic disclosures in field contingent valuation surveys have been debated but few empirical studies are available this paper summarizes the results of an experiment to identify strategic behavior using alternative disclosure mechanisms with closed ended and open ended formats in addition the experiment examined the effect of mechanism design on respondent s ability and willingness to disclose their personal valuation statistical results using censored discrete regression analysis and nonparameteric means tests provide some evidence of systematic differences due to strategic behavior but the comparisons are inconclusive due to the significant influence of sample selection on valuation results using closed ended formats and the inherent limitations of comparative means test procedures evidence from this analysis cannot refute the hypothesis that respondents try to the best of their ability to provide truthful information but the procedures used to interpret this information can have a significant effect on aggregate valuation results

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

housing appreciation mortgage interest rates and homeowner mobility abstract this paper presents a model of the optimal timing of tradeup which considers consumption and investment motives of homeownership households determine the optimal timing of trading up so as to maximize their intertemporal utility of both housing and nonhousing consumption first we consider current homeowners who already own a house and expect that they trade up to a more valuable house at some point in the future housing appreciation tends to induce an earlier optimal timing of trading up moreover housing appreciation makes current homeowners better off in terms of welfare however current homeowners suffer from a rise in mortgage interest rates second we consider first time home buyers who have decided to buy a house and expect to trade up to a more valuable house in the future their initial housing consumption is determined by an initial downpayment constraint in this case the effect of housing appreciation on the optimal timing of trading up is ambiguous and unlike current homeowners first time home buyers suffer from housing appreciation moreover as current homeowners first time home buyers suffer from a rise in mortgage interest rates most of the theoretical analytic results are ambiguous accordingly we perform numerical simulations based on the theoretical model in order to determine the most likely comparative effects for a stylized set of parameters as is apparent the model captures the recent observations on homewner mobility and suggests that macroeconomic variables such as housing appreciation and mortgage interest rates effect the optimal timing of trading up and homeowner s welfare nevertheless the model in this paper has several shortcomings which should be the subject of future research first transaction costs are ignored if transaction costs are incorporated the lock in effect from a rise in mortgage interest rates is well explained however the general analysis above is not altered in any essential way second multiple moves are not considered in this model therefore we concentrate on the timing of one tradeup as opposed to the timing and frequency of trading up in a different vein it would be interesting to test empirically the importance of the effects of macroeconomic variables on trading up by using microdata

the theory of collateral abstract this paper develops a model of the loan market noting interrelationships between size of loan collateral arrangements interest rate maturity and repayment schedule collateral quality is explored

embracing digital networks entrepreneurs social capital online abstract this paper presents a research agenda for understanding how entrepreneurs accrue social capital in the digital age we develop a conceptual framework with 12 research propositions that specify how the unique technical capabilities of social network sites impact entrepreneurs bridging and bonding social capital online these propositions are informed by anecdotal evidence from founders that finds entrepreneurs social capital accrual differs online we include theoretical and methodological insights for overcoming research challenges concerning context dynamism intertwined networks and unclear behavioral norms this agenda addresses a growing gap between contemporary entrepreneurial practices and existing social capital theory and research in entrepreneurship

optimal designs for discrete choice contingent valuation surveys single bound double bound and bivariate models this paper finds the designs for discrete choice contingent valuation surveys which maximize the precision of a statistic of interest about the public s willingness to pay wtp for a change in the environmental quality such as median wtp an optimization problem is set up in which the efficiency of the estimate of median wtp or a related concept is the objective function to optimize with respect to the survey design i e the set of bids offered to the respondents in deriving the optimal designs we consider alternative econometric models such as the basic single bound model that uses the responses to the first payment question the traditional interval data or double bound model for surveys with a follow up payment question and the recently proposed bivariate binary response model simulations are carried out to compare the alternative design principles and assess their performances with respect to the statistic of primary interest median wtp and other welfare measures such as mean wtp other designs that are constructed ad hoc are also examined

an examination of the substitutability of founders human and financial capital in emerging business ventures abstract undoubtedly access to financial capital and other resources is an important antecedent of new venture performance indeed inadequate financial resources often are cited as a primary reason why emerging businesses fail barren 1989 mcqueen 1989 otterbourg 1989 rujoub cook and hay 1995 yet there is some feeling among scholars that competent founders will find a way of coming up with necessary resources and capital chandler and hanks 1994 timmons 1990 thorne 1989 in this study we seek to better understand and provide insight into the factors that determine the amount of money needed to start a business and the factors that drive the decisions of whether such funding should come from founder savings or from outside sources we explore two questions 1 what factors are associated with the amount of initial capital raised and 2 what factors determine the mix of founder savings versus financial capital from outside sources that create the initial capital structure we seek to answer these questions using a sample of 102 manufacturing and service firms between 3 and 7 years of age these firms were categorized as manufacturing retail wholesale and business services in general the evidence supports our hypotheses the amount of financial capital at start up varies by industry of key importance in this study human and financial capital appear to be substitutable the analysis shows that on average firms with high levels of founder human capital and low levels of initial financial capital perform similarly to firms that have low levels of founder human capital and high levels of financial capital subgroup analysis provides insights into the degree of substitutability this finding suggests that founders with strong background experience may be able to start businesses that survive and thrive with less financial capital than their less experienced counterparts the proportion of initial capital provided by the founder differs significantly across industry types in more capital intensive industries founders provide a smaller proportion of the start up capital interestingly the amount of initial capital provided by the founder does not vary significantly across industry types this suggests that the amount of initial capital provided by the founder may result from contributing all they can give to the business which appears to be similar across business types finally founders perceptions of their ability to recognize and take advantage of opportunity are positively related to the proportion of initial capital provided by the founder this research provides insights into the factors that appear to drive the initial capital intensity and structure to provide better understanding of this phenomenon future research could investigate such practices as bootstrapping asset sharing or other techniques that allow founders to control resources without requiring ownership

starting point bias in dichotomous choice valuation with follow up questioning abstract follow up questions are frequently used to improve the efficiency of dichotomous choice contingent valuation questionnaires however a number of authors e g 12 16 have noted a significant difference between the wtp distributions implied by initial and follow up question responses this paper investigates starting point bias as one explanation for the phenomenon we develop a model of starting point bias in the context of dichotomous choice questioning with follow up using a monte carlo simulation to illustrate the potential bias imparted to wtp estimates an application is provided based on data from a cv study in northcentral iowa

a general model of starting point bias in double bounded dichotomous contingent valuation surveys abstract this paper develops a general model that addresses the starting point bias in the dichotomous choice evaluation data by incorporating both the anchoring effect and yea saying bias the model is applied to a contingent valuation study that evaluated the health benefits of air quality improvement in three major metropolitan areas in taiwan the empirical evidence shows a strong anchoring effect but an insignificant yea saying bias the results show a serious understated willingness to pay if the biases in anchoring and yea saying are not controlled

modeling starting point bias as unobserved heterogeneity in contingent valuation surveys an application to air pollution up to now the starting point bias has generally been considered to be a homogeneous phenomenon in this article we treat anchoring as an unobserved heterogeneous phenomenon our contribution is twofold first we show analytically and by way of simulations that assuming homogeneous anchoring can be hazardous and lead to misspecifications second we propose an econometric model that starts with a dichotomous question and then uses an open ended question we finally apply our model to a contingent valuation survey on air quality our results suggest that how anchoring is modeled in empirical studies deserves more attention

choice of mortgage instrument liquidity constraints and the demand for housing debt in the uk the research uses microdata to estimate reduced form mortgage demand equations based on truncated regressions dissagregated by choice of mortgage instrument the choice is between a standard annuity mortgage and a balloon type mortgage the endowment the estimates are used to indicate the differential impact of credit market rationing and financial liberalization on households the results indicate significant variations in mortgage demand by choice of mortgage instrument econometric testing demonstrates that the choice between an endowment and a repayment mortgage can be used as an exogenous indicator of liquidity and portfolio positions and different user costs of owner occupation

an independent sample test of yea saying and starting point bias in dichotomous choice contingent valuation abstract we developed several diagnostic tools to test the convergent validity of two common contingent valuation elicitation procedures data were collected from independent samples receiving dichotomous choice and payment card questions we compared actual with counter factual responses using deterministic and monte carlo methods and we found that wtp distributions and mean values varied by the value elicitation method we also developed a paired comparison test for procedure variance which indicated that yea saying and starting point bias influenced dichotomous choice responses

regional differences in mortgage demand and mortgage instrument choice in the uk koblyakova a hutchison n and tiwari p regional differences in mortgage demand and mortgage instrument choice in the uk regional studies this paper presents empirical evidence of regional variations in mortgage choice decisions within the uk s mortgage sector utilizing british household panel survey bhps data for the years 2001 2007 and 2008 the paper suggests that a household s decision to choose a variable rate mortgage is more likely to occur in areas with lower incomes and affordability rates such as northern england scotland and wales since variable rate mortgages are more sensitive to income and monetary policy shocks the disproportional distribution of variable contracts within the mortgage sector may have a differential impact on the regions

contingent valuation of community forestry programs in ethiopia controlling for preference anomalies in double bounded cvm this study examines the welfare effects of community plantations in ethiopia via contingent valuation both single bounded and double bounded survey methods were considered and with respect to double bounded methods the potential for anomalous response behaviour was also taken into account the results generally confirm that there are statistically significant welfare benefits to be derived from community forestry however the range of the estimated benefits is large after controlling for anomalous response behaviour the range of estimated benefits narrows and our preferred estimates place the welfare gain between ethiopian birr etb 20 14 and 30 41 per household which is much lower than the estimated benefits without controlling for anomalous preference responses

choke price bias in choice experiments this paper reports on the results from a split sample choice experiment where the effect of changing the maximum level of the cost attribute is investigated the hypothesis was that changing the maximum price level would either give rise to an income effect or have no effect on consumers preferences this was tested in the framework of a valuation study of different quality characteristics of minced pork the data was analysed using a mixed logit error component model which accounts for correlation in the unobserved part of the utility results suggest that the size of the maximum price level does matter and that changing the maximum price level has a statistically significant effect on both the general preferences structure and the wtp estimates hence researchers should be very careful when defining not only the range of the price attribute but also the maximum level of the price attribute

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

novice serial and portfolio entrepreneur behaviour and contributions policy makers and practitioners are considering whether to allocate resources towards portfolio and serial entrepreneurs as well as the provision of additional initiatives to increase the pool of novice entrepreneurs to inform this policy debate univariate statistical tests were used to test for differences between 354 firms owned by novice serial and portfolio entrepreneurs in scotland also univariate tests were conducted to compare responses made by pairwise groups of entrepreneurs no significant differences were detected between the three types of entrepreneurs with regard to several entrepreneur and firm demographic characteristics additional analysis revealed that portfolio entrepreneurs have more diverse experiences and more resources than serial or novice entrepreneurs on average portfolio entrepreneurs appear to offer more attractive growth prospects than other entrepreneurs

innovative opportunity pursuit human capital and business ownership experience in an emerging region evidence from ghana this study explores whether an entrepreneur s ability to assemble and leverage human capital particularly specific human capital relating to prior business ownership experience is associated with seven types of product and work practices innovation in an emerging region namely ghana logistic regression estimation revealed that portfolio entrepreneurs were more likely than novice entrepreneurs to report innovation tried multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that portfolio entrepreneurs were more likely than other entrepreneurs to report innovation tried and introduced if the goals of policy are to increase the quality of new business start ups and maximize investment returns there is a case to target assistance to portfolio entrepreneurs

efficient estimation methods for closed ended contingent valuation surveys closed ended contingent valuation surveys can be very useful in the evaluation of nonmarket resources respondents merely state whether they would accept or reject a hypothetical threshold amount either as payment for giving up access to the resource or as a fee for its use the authors develop a maximum likelihood procedure which exploits the variation in the threshold values to allow direct and separate point estimates of regression like slope coefficients and error standard deviations without truncation bias their illustration uses data from a survey of recreational fisherman to examine factors which influence individuals willingness to pay copyright 1987 by mit press

initial human and financial capital as predictors of new venture performance abstract this research seeks to predict the performance of new ventures based on factors that can be observed at the time of start up indicators of initial human and financial capital are considered to determine how they bear upon the probability of three possible performance outcomes 1 failure 2 marginal survival or 3 high growth four categories of initial human and financial capital are examined general human capital represented here by the entrepreneur s education gender and race may reflect the extent to which the entrepreneur has had the opportunity to develop relevant skills and contacts management know how embodied in the entrepreneur or available through advisors or partners reflects management specific skills and knowledge without regard to the kind of business industry specific know how reflects specific experience in similar businesses financial capital is one of the most visible resources it can create a buffer against random shocks and allow the pursuit of more capital intensive strategies which are better protected from imitation the study utilizes a longitudinal study of 1053 new ventures representative of all industry sectors and geographical regions the research departs from most previous studies in considering different measures of performance marginal survival and growth and in considering explicitly whether the factors contributing to marginal survival differ from those contributing to high growth it was found that measures of general human capital influenced both survival and growth except for gender with women owned ventures being less likely to grow but just as likely to survive management know how variables had more limited impact having parents who had owned a business contributed to marginal survival but not to growth number of partners contributed to growth but not to survival management level prior employment in non profit organizations or not having been in the labor force and the use of professional advisors did not have significant effects industry specific know how contributed to both survival and growth amount of initial financial capital also contributed to both the usefulness of the model is enhanced by the fact that the resource variables considered are relatively easy to assess and all can be considered at the time of start up although some of the human capital variables cannot easily be changed the benefits or risks associated with each can be assessed in some cases potential problems can be identified so that plans can be modified to improve prospects overall it appears that using a model based upon the initial human and financial capital of the venture it is possible to predict the performance of new ventures with some degree of confidence

evaluating the validity of the dichotomous choice question format in contingent valuation hypothetical and actual cash willingness to pay wtp for an art print were elicited with dichotomous choice and open ended question formats comparing hypothetical and actual dichotomous choice responses using both a likelihood ratio test and the method of convolutions suggests we reject equality at the 0 05 but not the 0 01 level hypothetical wtp was roughly two times actual wtp with the dichotomous choice format there were no significant differences between the open ended and dichotomous choice question formats when both were used to estimate hypothetical wtp or both used to estimate actual wtp

the public perceptions and willingness to pay from the perspective of the smog crisis in china the deteriorating air quality which is linked to human actions related to energy resources has become an urgent global problem china s air pollution has reached the hazardous level since 2000s in consideration of the serious health and social problems residential demand for clean air is increasing this paper applies the contingent valuation method to estimate public s willingness to pay wtp for reducing air pollution in the urban area of china open ended scenarios through face to face surveys are used to elicit public s wtp the two part model is employed for the estimation the probit model is used to estimate the probability of respondents who have positive wtp values and the interval regression model is employed to estimate the specific wtp level of those with nonzero wtp values the results show that nearly 90 of the respondents are willing to pay for reducing air pollution and the average amount of wtp per individual is 382 6rmb per year household income is found to be positively correlated with people s wtp and those who trust the government are more willing to share the cost of reducing air pollution this study recommends designing some effective mechanisms to tap the potentially available source of money for smog mitigation and improving the transparency of smog governance to enhance the government credibility as solutions to cope with smog crisis

valuing public goods discrete versus continuous contingent valuation responses independent applications of open ended and dichotomous choice formats are compared using tests of means estimating joint likelihood functions and nonparametric tests of distributions the null hypothesis of no difference in the open ended and dichotomous choice estimates of central tendency cannot be rejected for two out of three data sets while estimated standard deviations are significantly different for all three data sets in addition actual dichotomous choice means and standard deviations exceed those from comparable synthetic dichotomous choice data sets suggesting either open ended questions underestimate values or dichotomous choice bid structures may lead to systematic overestimates

comparing continuous and discrete contingent valuation questions this paper explores two commonly used methods to elicit an individual s willingness to pay wtp for a public good in contingent valuation studies currently the most preferred method is the take it or leave valuation question or discrete valuation question dvq where the respondent accepts or rejects a suggested cost for the good the traditional method the continuous valuation question cvq simply asks an individual to state his wtp for the suggested change in the provision of a public good like cleaner air we introduce a simple way to compare the results from these two methods we also test the anchoring behavior suggested in the psychological literature on choice under uncertainty the results do not support the anchoring hypothesis but suggest the hypothesis that people perceive the two tested valuation questions differently

eliciting public preference for nuclear energy against the backdrop of global warming one of the most important issues related to sustainability is to reduce the use of fossil fuels due to the reduction in greenhouse gases ghg emission nuclear power results in low carbon emissions and is thus important to mitigating the adverse effects of global warming and climate change however the downside of nuclear power cannot be overlooked and consequently nuclear power is a controversial issue in many countries around the world thus an important question concerns how people should support nuclear power do the climate and energy security benefits of nuclear power outweigh its risks and costs therefore we use a modified double bounded contingent valuation model to explore the attitudes and the willingness to pay wtp of a country in order to demonstrate its implications for policy we confirm that supporters and opponents of nuclear power are balanced both in terms of their numbers and in terms of their wtp the policy implication is that people do not support any dramatic increase or reduction in nuclear power and that nuclear power should still be an important means of generating electricity in taiwan the current share of nuclear power in electricity generation of 20 should be maintained in the near future

the location of markets perceived entrepreneurial risk and start up capital of micro rural firms it is argued that when founders of smes perceive the probability of a successful and lucrative venture to be greater they are more likely to provide a greater proportion of the start up capital this paper provides an empirical examination of two concurrent hypotheses firstly that the size of the debt or equity is affected by factors influencing perceived entrepreneurial risk secondly that the location of the market for the firm s output is a major factor reducing perceived entrepreneurial risk and increasing equity of the start up capital a statistical analysis based on the simultaneous tobit model is used results show that significant factors influencing risk perception include the size of the new business and the sector of economic activity as well as entrepreneurial experience and the location of the markets for the firm s output the results highlight implications for the design and implementation of rural development policies and especially for the instruments supporting rural business creation

product innovation and the decision to invest in fixed capital assets evidence from an sme survey in six european union member states abstract this work explores the relationship between product innovation and the decision to invest in fixed capital assets among a sample of smes in six european union countries located in both peripheral and more central areas we find that the presence of product innovation reduces the probability to invest a firm s size exerts a direct inverted u shape effect on the probability to invest and an indirect effect through the linear effect of size on the probability to innovate the gap in the probability to invest between innovative and non innovative firms increases with size

asset specificity and behavioral uncertainty as moderators of the sales growth employment growth relationship in emerging ventures sales growth and employment growth are the two most widely used growth indicators for new ventures yet sales growth and employment growth are not interchangeable measures of new venture growth rather they are related but somewhat independent constructs that respond differently to a variety of criteria most of the literature treats this as a methodological technicality however sales growth with or without accompanying employment growth has very different implications for managers and policy makers a better understanding of what drives these different growth metrics has the potential to lead to better decision making to improve that understanding we apply transaction cost economics reasoning to predict when sales growth will be or will not be accompanied by employment growth our results indicate that our predictions are borne out consistently in resource constrained contexts but not in resource munificent contexts