using real option analysis for highly uncertain technology investments the case of wind energy technology this study examines the feasibility of using a theoretical model and empirical analysis methods to value renewable energy re investment from perspective of real option analysis roa based on use of a roa approach the re value is evaluated with respect to its ability to conform to the main sensitivity analysis of re investment as well as an empirical method devised to value re investment by using actual data the economic intuitiveness underlying the decision making process for re investment is elucidated while empirical analysis is performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the options value embedded in current development planning in taiwan for wind energy in addition to revealing the advantages of re development when considering real option analytical results indicate that roa is a highly effective means of quantifying how investment planning uncertainty including managerial flexibility influences re development besides evaluating the value of current re investment this study demonstrates that results of the theoretical model empirical analysis and sensitivity analysis correlate well with each other restated the value of developing re increases when increasing the underlying price time to maturity risk free rate and volatility conversely the value of developing re decreases when increasing the exercise price

governmental intervention approaches to promote renewable energies special emphasis on japanese feed in tariff abstract almost all countries have issued laws and regulations to promote renewable energy re however the applications and motivations of such laws as well as achievements have been different currently the japanese government has announced its targets to expand the electricity feed in tariff scheme for solar power along with other energy sources within two years to meet the goal set by the japanese prime minister who in the 15th united nations climate change conference cop15 held in september 2009 proclaimed to cut 25 of greenhouse gas ghg emissions from the 1990 levels by 2020 in this paper the current japanese energy policies and measures for promoting re in comparison to popular methods followed worldwide are explored furthermore a least cost feed in tariff lcfit simulation model for japanese case was developed to calculate the optimal mix of technologies to reach certain targets the lcfit also calculates the tariff that should be proposed for each technology and the total cost for the program with and without a carbon tax and estimates the premium added to the bill of the customer every month

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

semi nonparametric distribution free dichotomous choice contingent valuation abstract we apply a semi nonparametric distribution free estimator for binary discrete response data to the estimation of a dichotomous choice contingent valuation model using this estimator mean and median compensating and equivalent variation can be consistently estimated without making nontheoretically motivated assumptions on consumer preferences the approach is illustrated using a contingent valuation survey of willingness to pay for reduction of risk of premature death due to exposure to hazardous waste we find that a conventional parametric estimator and the proposed estimator give similar estimates of unconditional wtp but that conditional on explanatory variables the estimates are quite different

conceptualization of energy security in resource poor economies the role of the nature of economy abstract this paper studies how energy security is conceptualized in four resource poor advanced island economies singapore south korea japan and taiwan it is found that the energy security conceptualization of the four economies in effect returns to the very original and conventional one stable and reliable energy supply however these economies are different in the level of stability and reliability demanded why are they similar in energy security conceptualization whereas different in the level of stability and reliability demanded adopting documentation analysis comparative study and the varieties of capitalism theory we find that the nature of economy constitutes the decisive factor that shapes energy security conceptualization the coordinated market economies cmes are more concerned about energy supply disruption than the liberalized market economies lmes the paper demonstrates that despite numerous energy security concepts in the literature resource poor economies still adopt the original and conventional one in practice the findings suggest that security of supply is the top measure for resource poor economies to improve their energy security and creating a joint petroleum and lng market would be desirable for the four economies in this study

differences between continuous and discrete contingent value estimates in a split sample contingent valuation study of willingness to pay wtp for food safety improvements the dichotomous choice dc elicitation method consistently generated much larger estimates of wtp than did a continuous method little or none of these differences was due to bias introduced by the statistical techniques used with the dc data most or all of the difference was due to differences in respondent behavior in addition the continuous wtp responses showed a significant scope effect while the dc responses did not the observed difference in behavior may be attributable in part to yea saying by dc respondents

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

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

social demand for electricity from forest biomass in spain does payment periodicity affect the willingness to pay in this article we analyze social preferences for a partial substitution programme of electricity generated by conventional energy sources for energy generated from a local renewable energy source such as forest biomass this analysis sets arguments in favour of accelerating the introduction of this renewable technology in the spanish electricity system simultaneously two methodological goals concerning the contingent valuation method are discussed in the first one we analyze if there are statistical differences in the willingness to pay wtp when a single or a double bounded format is employed to ask the valuation question results show that wtp estimates from single and double bounded significantly differ in the second one we analyze the effect of the periodicity of the payment vehicle on the estimates of welfare change the timeframe specification of the payment vehicle has been scarcely studied and this fact constitutes the main contribution of this paper to the specialized literature results show that periodicity influences upon the probability to favour the proposed change the periodicity does not affect to the mean wtp obtained in the single bounded format but there are statistical differences in the double bounded format these results might be explained by the presence of yea saying and payment scale bias

a comparison of willingness to pay estimation techniques from referendum questions referendum style willingness to pay questions have been used to estimatepassive use values this referendum question format method may beproblematic for many reasons including the statistical techniques used toestimate willingness to pay from discrete responses this paper comparesa number of parametric semi nonparametric and nonparametric estimationtechniques using data collected from us households regarding federalprotection of endangered fish species the advantages and disadvantagesof the various statistical models used are explored a hypothesis test forstatistical equality among estimation techniques is performed using ajackknife bootstrapping method when the equality test is applied themodeling techniques do show significant differences in some possiblecomparisons but only those that are nonparamentric this can lead toconflicting interpretations of what the data show resource managers andpolicy analysts need to use caution when interpreting results until anindustry standard can be developed for estimating willingness to pay fromclosed ended questions

one and one half bound dichotomous choice contingent valuation to reduce the potential for response bias on the follow up bid in multiple bound discrete choice cvm questions while maintaining much of the efficiency gains of the multiple bound approach we introduce the one and one half bound oohb approach despite the fact that the oohb model uses less information than the double bound db approach efficiency gains in moving from single bound to oohb capture a large portion of the gain associated with moving from single bound to db in an analysis of survey data our oohb estimates demonstrated higher consistency with respect to the follow up data than the db estimates and were more efficient as well

a satisfactory benefit cost indicator from contingent valuation abstract standard economic concepts are used to develop a model of individual behavior when subject to the constraints of the contingent valuation choice context the model yields refutable consequences that are consistent with previously reported empirical findings including some that have been thought to be anomalous the model is used to show that different contingent valuation formats have predictably different performance characteristics notably the hicksian compensating measures are satisfactory benefit cost indicators when elicited using any one of several formats identified in the text of the formats examined one form of a policy referendum appears to have the most satisfactory characteristics overall we conclude that contingent valuation is a progressing research program

measuring the consumer benefits of improving farm animal welfare to inform welfare labelling abstract policy makers in the european union are envisioning the introduction of a community farm animal welfare label which would allow consumers to align their consumption habits with their farm animal welfare preferences for welfare labelling to be viable the market for livestock products produced to higher welfare standards has to be sufficiently segmented with consumers having sufficiently distinct and behaviourally consistent preferences the present study investigates consumers preferences for meat produced to different welfare standards using a hypothetical welfare score data is obtained from a contingent valuation study carried out in britain the ordered probit model was estimated using bayesian inference to obtain mean willingness to pay we find decreasing marginal wtp as animal welfare levels increase and that people s preferences for different levels of farm animal welfare are sufficiently differentiated making the introduction of a labelling scheme in the form of a certified rating system appear feasible

policies and legislation driving taiwan s development of renewable energy abstract under the current wave of international responses to the growing threat of climate change taiwan cannot afford to step back from its goal of advancing its renewable energy strengthening its energy self sufficiency and energy security this paper will first analyze the high level dependency structure of taiwan s energy demands then we will explore taiwan current situation in terms of renewable energy development furthermore from an overview of the course of changes and development in taiwan s energy policy highlight the commitment to and aims of taiwan s renewable energy development made by the government at the annual national energy conference fourth we shall analyse technological r d incentives taxes market reforms and other related policy tools fifth in light of public announcements and budgets set in recent years for taiwan s renewable energy research plan highlight main strategies being given impetus by the government sixth the author will discuss the implications of recent significant legal reforms to the development of renewable energy in taiwan and from the correlating aspects of industrial structures and energy consumption take the first steps in emphasizing the urgent need for adjustments to be made to taiwan s industrial structure finally this paper will conclude by examining current policies legislation and strategies which are in place to promote this area in taiwan and discuss the potential competitiveness and future scenarios which the development of renewable energy could mean for taiwan

bayesian analysis of interval data contingent valuation models and pricing policies the general aim of a contingent valuation survey is to elicit the willingness to pay wtp of respondents for some public commodity without a clear market price this could be a program to protect some environmental resource or as in our application the access to a recreational area of particular interest in this context we want to accommodate the possibility of zero wtp and we need to deal with the fact that observations arise as intervals for wtp rather than point observations we propose a flexible bayesian statistical analysis of wtp as a function of characteristics of the respondents that formally incorporates this structure through a mixture model we consider model uncertainty and pay particular attention to the predictive distribution of revenue if a certain entry price were asked the latter is an important tool for deriving pricing policies

the aggregation of environmental benefit values welfare measures distance decay and total wtp abstract we review the literature regarding the aggregation of benefit value estimates for non market goods two case studies are presented through which we develop an approach to aggregation which applies the spatial analytic capabilities of a geographical information system to combine geo referenced physical census and survey data to estimate a spatially sensitive valuation function these case studies show that the common reliance upon political rather than economic jurisdictions and the use of sample mean values within the aggregation process are liable to lead to significant errors in resultant values we also highlight the fact that for resources with use values then we should expect overall values to reduce with increasing distance from such sites but that changes in the choice of welfare measure will determine whether such distance decay is to be expected within values stated by those who are presently non users the paper concludes by providing recommendations for future improvements to the methodology

assessment of the feed in tariff mechanism for renewable energies in taiwan abstract due to taiwan s lack of natural resources dependence on imported energy and pursuit of sustainable development renewable energies are extremely important for taiwan s future energy supply since taiwan s feed in tariff fit is still in its initial stage one must examine whether the current system is compatible with a well designed fit scheme this study examines the main features of taiwan s fit system and assesses design options using several criteria additionally one of the most important elements of a fit scheme namely a tariff system is discussed taiwan s fit scheme has the design options required by well functioning fits and the guaranteed return tariff system coincides with the spirit underlying leading global fits however many issues such as setting goals by stages refinement of the tariff calculation methodology and elimination of other non economic barriers must be addressed to achieve future developmental goals and green industry growth

confidence intervals for evaluating benefits estimates from dichotomous choice contingent valuation studies i evaluate the potential usefulness of nonmarket valuation concepts and techniques from environmental economics for improving wildlife conservation the concepts include distinguishing between on site recreation use value and off site passive use or

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

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

analysis of the policy effects of downstream feed in tariff on china s solar photovoltaic industry abstract the chinese government initiated the feed in tariff fit policy for downstream power generation in august 2013 the effectiveness of the downstream fit policy has attracted the attention of academia and government using the quarterly data of listed solar pv companies between 2009 and 2015 this paper provides an empirical analysis regarding the effects of the downstream fit policy we find that 1 the fit policy has significantly enhanced the inventory turnover of listed pv firms and improved their profitability 2 the fit policy has significant effects on the inventory turnover of midstream companies and mixed industry chain companies mainly engaged in downstream operations 3 fit policy is more favorable towards increasing the inventory turnover of private enterprises our results indicate that the fit policy can have substantial effects on the sustainable development of china s solar photovoltaic industry

taiwan s renewable energy strategy and energy intensive industrial policy abstract since taiwan is a densely populated island with almost no fossil energy resources the development of renewable energy is an important issue in the past industries with low energy productivity were encouraged for economic development but this structure of low energy productivity industries should now be adjusted to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency by analyzing the gross domestic product together with the energy consumption and co2 emissions for major industries in taiwan this paper considers what kinds of industries should be encouraged or discouraged for taiwan s future development in addition the recommendations for taiwan s renewable energy and energy intensive industrial policy are presented

rationality of migration the paradigm of a rational individual acting on the earnings enhancing benefits of migration is subjected to statistical scrutiny using data from turkey results with robust selectivity correction support the rationality hypothesis both migrants and nonmigrants chose the option in which they had comparative advantage however the estimated gain from moving is negative for a substantial portion of migrants whereas a minority realize very high returns this suggests that migration is a lottery individuals are willing to invest in a proposition that has a high probability of yielding negative returns because of the potential for a very large payoff

nonparametric estimation of mean willingness to pay from discrete response valuation data this article develops a nonparametric method to consistently estimate mean willingness to pay wtp in various discrete response valuation methods the advantage of this method is that it can consistently estimate unconditional mean wtp with astonishing ease under some assumptions of the bid distribution in addition we develop a method for estimating the best linear predictor for conditional mean wtp using a linear projection this method is applicable to single bounded and double bounded contingent valuation and some forms of choice experiment

enhancing renewable and sustainable energy development based on an options based policy evaluation framework case study of wind energy technology in taiwan global warming and climate change have shifted the focus of industrial development towards low carbon renewable energy re as evidence by global efforts to develop re based sustainable energy policies however the generally cost ineffective nature of re investments explains continued governmental subsidies and draft assistance measures to encourage related industrial development reduce research and development r d costs and increase innovativeness besides measures to accelerate supply and reduced demand for energy sustainable energy policies must enact thoroughly planned legal and regulatory mechanisms notable examples of establishing a legal basis for a low carbon society in taiwan include the energy management act renewable energy development bill greenhouse gas reduction act draft and energy tax act draft however such legislative efforts occasionally conflict or compete with each other warranting further integration additionally re technologies are characterized by high r d costs long term planning and high investment risks therefore based on global trends in wind power development and related policy planning this study analyzes the feasibility of implementing management strategies in the development process and the correlations between such strategies additionally the achievements polices functions mechanisms promotion measures and future plans for related renewable and sustainable energy laws in taiwan is thoroughly reviewed an options based policy evaluation framework is also constructed based on governmental administrative considerations moreover the characteristics of options that lead to unforeseen circumstances during the planning of re development policies are discussed allowing us to derive real time response measures with a decision making value results of this study provide a valuable reference for governmental efforts to evaluate the merits and limitations of related policies concisely ultimately facilitating the formulation of re development policies

use of dichotomous choice nonmarket methods to value the whooping crane resource market prices for endangered wildlife species rarely exist when prices do exist they arc not likely to reflect accurately individual preferences both consumptive uses such as hunting fishing and trapping boyle and bishop 1985 stou and johnson brookshire eubanks and randall and more esoteric benefits such as viewing and existence values must be considered this article is addressed to the valuation of whooping cranes grus americana a prominent endangered species the purpose of this article is to present a methodology for estimating nonconsumptive benefits associated with the existence of an endangered species a dichotomous choice form of contingent valuation is applied to quantify individuals economic surplus associated with preservation of the whooping crane resource specific issues and limitations of the empirical approach are discussed some of which have been previously examined by bishop and heberlein 1979 and hanemann the present paper expands upon earlier work in several ways fit in addition to discussing the above issues a unique application of the approach to an endangered species is presented second three model specifications are examined two of which arc consistent with utility theory and one which is not hanemann ti again following hanemann economic surplus is estimated at the sample median as well as the mean the dii cussion of the last two issues sheds sit on their implications for estimation of economic surplus throughout the article the suitability of alternative estimation techniques for dichom mous choice or referendum style data is examined the methodological and empirical results are relevant to a number of cumnt issues regarding model specification choice of binary response model and choice of estimator for equivalent surplus hanemann boyle and bishop 1984 sellar chavas and stoll

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

flexible functional form estimation of willingness to pay using dichotomous choice data abstract this paper introduces fully flexible semi nonparametric methods for calculating willingness to pay wtp bounded between zero and the respondent s income for dichotomous choice contingent valuation a method to estimate median wtp using fully flexible functional forms is also presented finally the numerical illustration demonstrates the importance of considering jensen s inequality in calculating wtp with nonlinear models

renewable energy diffusion in asia can it happen without government support the dramatically increasing population of asia necessitates equally as dramatic increase in energy supply to meet demand rapidly increasing energy demand is a major concern for asian countries because the increase in demand is being met through the increased use of fossil fuel supply largely domestic coal and imported fuel renewable energy supply presents a lower emission pathway that could be a viable option for steering off the higher emissions path however several market economic institutional technical and socio cultural barriers hinder countries in moving from high to low emission pathway following a discussion on the rising demand for energy in asia and the prospects of partly satisfying it with renewable energy we outline the reasons for government support to tackle the barriers for widespread diffusion of grid based renewable energy additionally we also discuss workable models for strategic government intervention to support diffusion of grid based renewable energy in asia

improved estimation of willingness to pay in dichotomous choice contingent valuation studies this paper uses recently developed statistical techniques to achieve improved parameter estimates from models ofdichotomoiis choice contingent valuation data random effects associated with bid amounts presented to respondents are modelled alongside the variance of individual responses to give a nested model which more truly reflects the structure of the data being analyzed quasi likelihood methods for estimating parameters in such hierarchical models are discussed and a simulation method for assessing goodness of fit is demonstrated however estimated parameters may still be biased and hence a parametric bootstrap technique is presented and compared to a delta method approximation jel q26

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

welfare measurements using contingent valuation a comparison of techniques three commonly used techniques of asking contingent valuation questions are compared iterative bidding payment cards and dichotomous choice the results reveal that no single contingent valuation technique is neutral in the elicitation of hicksian surplus and each technique has its strengths and weaknesses the iterative bidding estimates contain a starting point bias while the payment card and dichotomous choice estimates were influenced by the interviewers soliciting the contingent values finally the analysis of dichotomous choice responses involves unresolved issues that warrant further investigation on the other hand dichotomous choice is the easiest technique to administer in a survey setting

worse than expected uncertainty and earnings subsequent to return migration analyses of unique cross country register data reveal that earnings subsequent to return migration are strongly dependent on uncertainty in the initial migration decision migrants who miss their target have 10 25 lower earnings than those at the expected level

distribution free estimation with interval censored contingent valuation data troubles with turnbull contingent valuation cv surveys frequently employ elicitation procedures that return interval censored data on respondents willingness to pay wtp almost without exception cv practitioners have applied turnbull s self consistent algorithm to such data in order to obtain nonparametric maximum likelihood npml estimates of the wtp distribution this paper documents two failings of turnbull s algorithm 1 that it may not converge to npml estimates and 2 that it may be very slow to converge with regards to 1 we propose starting and stopping criteria for the algorithm that guarantee convergence to the npml estimates with regards to 2 we present a variety of alternative estimators and demonstrate through monte carlo simulations their performance advantages over turnbull s algorithm

analysis on energy intensive industries under taiwan s climate change policy abstract this study addresses the planning and implementation of energy industry and carbon economy policies concerning the development of the taiwan s energy intensive industries from perspective of climate change as a newly industrialized country taiwan attaches greater importance to the development of green energy and low carbon industries in cooperation with global pressure for carbon reduction due to climate changes through energy and industrial conferences thus in the past year the taiwanese government constructed four laws concerning energy and carbon reduction in order to drive the green energy industry furthermore it plans to reduce current carbon emission benchmarks nevertheless statistical analysis found that in the last decade energy intensive industries have presented structural unbalance regarding energy consumption co 2 emissions energy intensity contributions to the gdp and product value industries in the industrial sector have high energy consumption high carbon emissions and increase total domestic consumption and carbon emissions which have disproportionate contributions to industrial added value nevertheless the government continues to approve investments for such energy intensive industries and results in continuous increases in energy consumption and carbon emissions this contradictory phenomenon indicates that newly industrialized countries rely on a manufacturing economic structure which is difficult to adjust and violates the trends of a global low carbon economy hence the government must examine and adjust such unbalanced industrial structures where such adjustments are executed in a fair and just manner and encourage the development of high value added measures for low carbon manufacturing and service sectors to become equal with competitors in a global economy

evaluating energy security of resource poor economies a modified principle component analysis approach abstract this study proposes to aggregately measure energy security performance with the principal component analysis in its application of the methodology to four resource poor yet economically advanced island economies in east asia singapore south korea japan and taiwan this study establishes a novel framework to conceptualize energy security the framework incorporates three dimensions vulnerability efficiency and sustainability three indicators being allocated to each dimension the study finds that all the three dimensions are critical for the resource poor economies but have different weights in each of them an urgent task for these four economies is to implement energy efficiency and conservation measures liberalization of electricity sector can be a helpful tool to reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency all of them have been committed to promoting renewable energy development which shall be further expanded in these economies

optimal experimental design for double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation the double bounded dichotomous choice model is becoming popular in the contingent valuation literature this technique considers the responses to two bids the second one being determined according to the response to the first and it has been shown to be statistically more efficient than the standard single bounded model in this paper the issue of the optimal choice of bid values for the double bounded logit model is addressed these designs are derived to satisfy the d optimal c optimal and fiducial method criteria

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

willingness to pay for carbon offset certification and co benefits among high flying young adults in the uk voluntary carbon offsets represent a growing share of the carbon market as a whole and have the potential to contribute to meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets and reducing anthropogenic climate change certain offset project types may also deliver co benefits including safeguarding or promoting biodiversity supporting human development and poverty reduction and enabling market and technology development in low carbon sectors these co benefits might encourage consumers to participate in the voluntary offset market depending on their effects both on consumers willingness to pay wtp for offsets and on implementation costs however the offset market is not yet sufficiently developed to give a clear indication of consumer wtp for offsets with varying attributes this exploratory stated preference study therefore uses a choice experiment to estimate wtp for certified and uncertified offsets with or without these specific co benefits in an aviation context it is to the best of our knowledge the first to do so our results suggest that uptake of voluntary offsets may be encouraged by investing in projects with co benefits and by emphasising those co benefits to consumers they also suggest that certification regimes will add value to offsets helping compensate for increased costs provided that consumers are made fully aware of them

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

sequencing and nesting in contingent valuation surveys abstract the term embedding is ill defined and has been applied to distinct phenomena some predicted by economic theory and others not this paper lays out a theoretical framework for looking at these phenomena and provides a set of well defined terms included is a discussion of survey design problems which may induce spurious evidence in favor of the hypothesis that respondents are insensitive to the scope of the good being valued an empirical example of the component sensitivity is provided this test rejects the hypothesis that respondents are insensitive to the scope of the good being valued

potential for tradable water allocation and rights in jordan this paper estimates the costs of buying water use rights from farmers located in the mafraq azraq basin in jordan the farmers water supply curve is estimated using data gathered from a contingent valuation survey and nonparametric procedures estimation results indicate that a total supply of 29 million m 3 could be periodically purchased from farmers at an annual price of approximately jd 0 23 m 3 1 jd 0 70 us or a total cost of about jd 6 8 million per year

a hierarchical cost learning model for developing wind energy infrastructures renewable energy has been increasingly promoted and used to substitute non renewable fossil fuels which cause negative effects on the environment the taiwan statute for renewable energy development has regulated and promoted renewable energy since 2009 a feed in tariff fit for renewable energy is one of the incentives that the government uses to promote the installation of green power generation facilities the price of the electricity feed in tariff is based on the current and future costs of renewable energy generation when analyzing cost trends for renewable energy installation many researchers use a single factor cost learning curve model however past studies indicate that there are multiple factors affecting the overall cost of installing renewable energy hence this research develops a hierarchical installation cost learning model which considers multiple factors to accurately model and forecast wind energy development this research uses wind power development data from taiwan as a case study we identify the cost factors evaluate the learning effects and compare the hierarchical learning curve model to the basic non hierarchical learning curve model the research results show an improved fit between the hierarchical model and the actual data when compared to the basic learning model the study also provides new insights between the wind power learning progression of taiwan and three countries in europe

differences between willingness to pay estimates from open ended and discrete choice contingent valuation methods the effects of heteroscedasticity most comparative studies find that the discrete choice contingent valuation method dc cvm yields higher willingness to pay wtp estimates than the open ended oe format in this paper we discuss and test several hypotheses to explain why wtp estimates from oe and dc cvm questions differ we find that wtp estimates from discrete choice data are very sensitive to assumptions made about the random utility in particular violation of the homoscedasticity assumption may lead to biased wtp estimates if the error terms are correlated with the cost this violation was a main source of difference in wtp estimates in our studies

selection in migration and return migration evidence from micro data linked micro data from sweden and finland confirm predictions of migrant selection theory migrants are found to be negatively and return migrants positively selected on observable skills whereas there is only minor selection on unobservable skills

ordering effects in nested top down and bottom up contingent valuation designs abstract within a contingent valuation cv survey ordering effects are defined where responses to a given question vary in a theoretically unanticipated manner according to the positioning of that question relative to others in the survey instrument this paper employs a split sample cv design to investigate the potential for such ordering effects upon stated willingness to pay for nested goods in one top down design values are first elicited for protecting the whole of an endangered area after which values for a part sub area are elicited a second bottom up treatment reverses the order of valuation tasks with the part scheme valued prior to the whole results show that whole and part valuation responses are logically ordered and determined by a consistent set of factors irrespective of question order however variance to question order was observed in both the part and whole valuations the correspondence of these results to standard and non standard preference theories is explored and the difficulties and practical issues concerning valuing nested goods are highlighted

development of taiwanese government s climate policy after the kyoto protocol applying policy network theory as an analytical framework abstract given its limited involvement in and recognition by international organizations taiwan is not presently a signatory to the united nations framework convention on climate change unfccc or the kyoto protocol the objective of this study is to analyze how and the extent to which changes in an exogenous factor namely the kyoto protocol and post kyoto climate negotiations affect and ultimately lead to the formulation of and changes in the taiwanese government s climate policy this study applies policy network theory to examine the development of and changes in the taiwanese government s climate policy the results demonstrate that international climate agreements and negotiations play a key role in the development of changes to and transformation of taiwan s climate policy scarce evidence was found in this study to demonstrate that domestic or internal factors affect climate change policy despite its lack of participation in the unfccc and the kyoto protocol taiwan has adopted national climate change strategies action plans and programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions however these climate policies and measures are fairly passive and aim to only conform to the minimal requirements for developing countries under international climate agreements and negotiations this process results in inconsistent and variable climate policies targets and regulations

renewable energy in eastern asia renewable energy policy review and comparative swot analysis for promoting renewable energy in japan south korea and taiwan abstract japan south korea and taiwan are deficient of domestic fossil energy sources and depend significantly on imported fuels since the oil shock in the 1970s all three countries have promoted renewable energy as an alternative energy source to improve energy security currently renewable energy is being promoted to build low carbon economies this study reviews the development of renewable energy policies and roadmaps it also examines and compares strengths weaknesses opportunities and threats swot of these countries in the context of advancing renewable energy policies and technologies and expanding domestic renewable energy installations as well as strategically positioning themselves in the international renewable energy market as exporters of clean energy technologies through the swot analysis this paper identifies a capacity for additional renewable energy deployment in these countries and highlights the necessity of increased cooperation between the three countries to strengthen their domestic and regional renewable energy sectors and compete in the global renewable energy market in the post fukushima era

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

nonparticipation or misspecification the impacts of nonparticipation on dichotomous choice contingent valuation dichotomous choice or referendum contingent valuation surveys have become the predominate choice for valuing goods and services otherwise not valued in a standard market nonmarket goods and services a number of researchers have recently recommended that dichotomous choice contingent valuation studies include a follow up question to all no responses to determine whether the no response is a result of unwillingness to pay or nonparticipation if the goal of the study is to investigate the impact of covariates on either mean willingness to pay or the probability of nonparticipation simple identification of indifferent individuals will not suffice a simulation study shows that existing econometric models designed to account for nonparticipation are extremely sensitive to misspecification bias accurate identification of the probability of nonparticipation is hampered by potential misspecification of the distribution of willingness to pay

cumulative causation and selectivity in labour market oriented migration caused by imperfect information maier g 1985 cumulative causation and selectivity in labour market oriented migration caused by imperfect information reg studies 19 231 241 the paper discusses the implications of job search models for migration the information assumption of the standard search model turns out to be too restrictive to permit insights into the migration decision process many hypotheses derived from these assumptions contradict empirical observations dropping the assumption of perfect information about the wage offer distribution leads to a more complex search model in this model information about the wage offer distribution is imperfect and accumulated through the search process when based on this search model the migration model is largely enriched and also more realistic strategies which are suboptimal or even absurd with perfect information about the wage offer distribution such as purchase of information can be preferable in a migration model when imperfect information is assumed although the model p

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

inference and optimal design for a welfare measure in dichotomous choice contingent valuation this paper considers the use of contingent valuation to estimate non market benefits from separately valued nested goods survey respondents were asked referendum wtp questions regarding either a scheme to protect the whole area of a wetland or a

efficiency gains afforded by improved bid design versus follow up valuation questions in discrete choice cv studies interval data analysis of cv dis crete choice responses delivers efficiency gains which must be weighed against the risk of intro ducing strategic response bias efficiency gains are also achievable by improved bid design we assess these gains on median wtp estimates first in an empirical application then by means of a monte carlo experiment comparing three differ ent bid designs improved but sub optimal bid design delivers comparable gains to those achieved by one and two follow up questions the first follow up captures more than 50 of the efficiency gain provided by a second follow up jel q26

estimating benefits for effective enforcement of speed reduction from dichotomous choice cv we present an empirical estimation of the distribution of wtp foreffective speed restriction via implementation of local trafficcalming schemes random samples are drawn from the populations ofhouseholds henceforth hhs of three centres intersected by maintrunk roads with varying through traffic conditions we estimatethe underlying wtp distributions from discrete choice responsesto site specific referendum contingent valuation studiesaccounting for zero bidders we then test the hypothesis ofdifferent distributions across villages the statistical analysisconsists first of a parametric specification and then of atotally non parametric one stated welfare changes for effectivespeed reduction are found to be sizeable and the parameters ofthe random utility models are plausibly related to differences inobjective speed measures across centres the results appear toencourage the use of the referencum cv method in the estimationof local public goods in this case study the proposed publicproject would seem to pass the kaldor hicks potentialcompensation test

a comparison of approaches to calculating confidence intervals for benefit measures from dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys this paper compares the performance of four approaches to calculating confidence intervals around dichotomous choice contingent valuation method dc cvm benefit estimates the performance of the approaches is compared using monte carlo simulation techniques for the two most common specifications for the welfare estimate the results indicate that all four methods tended to perform well on average but the methods differed in the frequency with which they performed well the results indicate the best choice depends on the sample size on the distribution of the welfare estimate and on the choice of functional form for the welfare estimate

referendum models and economic values theoretical intuitive and practical bounds on willingness to pay innovations in the estimation of referendum type contingent valuation models have led to willingness to pay wtp measures inconsistent with consumer preferences and unbounded from above or below we propose a set of criteria which guarantee a bounded measure of wtp the criteria reject the traditional random utility model with unrestricted error terms in favor of the random wtp model with bounds on wtp once wtp is bounded by zero and income the form of the distribution is less consequential a new model for wtp is developed based on the beta distribution and is compared to previously estimated models

statistical approaches to the fat tail problem for dichotomous choice contingent valuation if a cumulative density function esti mated from dichotomous choice data has an unre alistically fat right hand tail mean willingness to pay wtp will be overestimated truncating the range of integration results in a lower bound esti mate of the true mean wtp a normalization pro cedure proposed by boyle welsh and bishop 1988 unnecessarily depresses the estimate further a new statistical approach is presented that allows a best guess estimate of mean wtp because this estimate involves extrapolation beyond the range of the data it tends to be highly variable jel q21

would developing country commitments affect us households support for a modified kyoto protocol abstract would us households be willing to pay more to support a modified kyoto protocol mkp if developing countries had binding future limits on greenhouse gas production we explore this question using data from a unique set of national internet samples and web based surveys using an advisory referendum format the contingent valuation method is applied to estimate annual household willingness to pay wtp for us senate ratification of the kyoto protocol for a split sample treatment the basic kyoto protocol bkp control group versus a mkp that includes limits on future greenhouse gas production for major developing countries treatment group the results indicate that the treatment significantly increases the probability of a yes vote on the advisory referendum econometric modeling results provide evidence that the mkp significantly increases us households median wtp to support the treaty

valuing the recreational benefits from the creation of nature reserves in irish forests abstract data from a large scale contingent valuation study are used to investigate the effects of forest attributes on willingness to pay for forest recreation in ireland in particular the presence of a nature reserve in the forest is found to significantly increase the visitors willingness to pay a random utility model is used to estimate the welfare change associated with the creation of nature reserves in all the irish forests currently without one the yearly impact on visitors economic welfare of new nature reserves approaches half a million pounds per annum exclusive of non recreational values

a contingent valuation estimate of the benefits of wolves in minnesota in this paper we estimate the willingness topay for a wolf management plan and a wolfdamage plan in minnesota using the contingentvaluation method the theoretical definition ofwillingness to pay for wolf protection iscomposed of use and non use values weincorporate a don t know response option in thedichotomous choice valuation questions a largenumber of respondents answered don t know themultinomial logit model is used todifferentiate between don t know and noresponses non use motives are importantfactors that explain willingness to pay we usethese benefit estimates in combination with twoalternative cost estimates to consider theefficiency of the wolf management and damageplans both plans have estimated benefitsgreater than costs