energy market liberalization and renewable energy policies in oecd countries abstract this paper investigates the effect of energy liberalization compared to other drivers on policies that support renewable energy in a long panel of oecd countries we estimate this effect by accounting for the endogeneity of liberalization related to joint decisions within a country s energy strategy using regulation in other industries as instruments we find that energy liberalization increases public support for renewable energy the effect of liberalization is the second largest after the effect of per capita income and is mostly driven by reductions in entry barriers while the effect of privatization is unclear this finding suggests that a reduction in the monopolistic power of state owned utilities has a positive effect on renewable energy policies when various types of actors are ensured access to the grid instead of it being provided to only a few large private firms

correcting for the endogeneity of pro environment behavioral choices in contingent valuation abstract in contingent valuation studies observed behavioral choices often enter as independent variables in the willingness to pay function however these variables may be endogenously determined when the error term in the behavioral model is correlated with the error term in the willingness to pay model we investigate the effects of correcting for the endogeneity of a variable namely membership status in environmental organizations that proxies unobservable characteristics of the respondents jointly modeling the membership variable and the willingness to pay response yields an estimate for the effect of the former that contradicts previous findings but is intuitive and agrees with theoretical expectations

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

a joint investigation of public support and public values case of instream flows in new mexico abstract instream flow can be defined as the flow of water in its natural channels without diversion alone among the western us states new mexico nm fails to provide any mechanism for the protection of instream flows and has a long history of political resistance to any change in the status quo using the combined results from two statewide telephone surveys this study jointly investigates stated voting preferences for a proposed institutional change and stated valuation preferences for minimum instream flow protection the contingent valuation cv question uses a dichotomous choice dc elicitation format and a voluntary contribution trust fund payment vehicle results show a highly significant positive correlation between expressed voting preferences and expressed valuation preferences additionally those individuals who respond yes to the voting question have an expected willingness to pay wtp of 80 with a 95 confidence interval ci that is always positive 62 97 while those who respond no to the voting question have an expected wtp that is actually slightly negative 6 with a 95 ci containing zero 14 2 taken together these results provide evidence of construct validity estimation results are also shown to be temporally reliable across repeated samples thus there is strong evidence of public support for instream flow protection and its associated nonmarket benefits such evidence helps to provide instream flow concerns with standing in future nm water policy debates prominent examples include explicitly defining beneficial use and public welfare to allow consideration of instream flow protection

the influence of collective action on the demand for voluntary climate change mitigation in hypothetical and real situations in this experiment we investigate determinants of the individual demand for voluntary climate change mitigation subjects decide between a cash prize and an allowance from the eu emissions trading scheme for one ton of co2 that will be deleted afterwards we vary the incentives of the decision situation in which we distinguish between real monetary incentives and a hypothetical decision situation with and without a cheap talk script furthermore decisions were implemented either as purely individual or as a collective action using majority voting we observe a significant hypothetical bias in the demand for voluntary climate change mitigation in case of the individual decision situation this bias is caused solely by subjects with low income collective decision making affects demand positively in the hypothetical decision situation only

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

disentangling the effects of policy and payment consequentiality and risk attitudes on stated preferences abstract incentivizing respondents to truthfully reveal their preferences in stated preference surveys requires that they believe their survey responses can influence decisions related to the outcome in question policy consequentiality and that they will have to bear their share of the coercive cost if the outcome is implemented payment consequentiality we investigate the effects of these two aspects of perceived consequentiality on stated preferences in a field survey concerning renewable energy development in poland we find that beliefs in policy and payment consequentiality strengthen the respondents interest in having the project implemented however policy consequentiality decreases and payment consequentiality increases their sensitivity to the project cost which respectively increases and decreases their willingness to pay for the project we conclude that the two aspects of consequentiality should be addressed separately additionally we inquire the theoretically speculated links between the respondents perceptions of policy and payment consequentiality and their risk attitudes and we find no significant relationship

residential natural gas price affordability analysis a case study of beijing abstract in recent years the demand for natural gas has shown strong growth in china however the relative lack of domestic natural gas resources and dependence on gas imports have resulted in rising natural gas prices in order to ensure market order the natural gas pricing mechanism must be closely linked to customer affordability the objective of this paper is to analyse natural gas prices economic and psychological affordability for beijing s residents by the income expenditure elasticity model and the equivalent heating value method and further to evaluate the comprehensive affordability of the natural gas price by the small taking and interval number methods finally it provides some suggestions for the formulation of beijing s residential natural gas prices

the economic consequences of brexit energy in this paper we raise a number of issues that are important for the uk to consider in the light of its decision to leave the european union eu the first of these is the nature of the eu single market in electricity and gas and the uk s role within this the second is the nature of uk energy policy in the light of brexit and the opportunities for changing this and third we consider some of the key issues to be addressed in a negotiating position with the eu

valuing mortality risk in kuwait stated preference with a new consistency test we report stated preference estimates of the value per statistical life vsl for kuwaiti citizens obtained using an innovative test to identify respondents whose survey responses are consistent with economic theory the consistency test requires that an individual report strictly positive willingness to pay wtp for mortality risk reduction and that his responses to binary choice valuation questions for two risk reductions be consistent with the theoretical requirement that wtp is less than but close to proportional to the change in risk reduction our estimates of vsl 18 32 million are approximately two to four times larger than values accepted for the united states these values may reflect cultural factors as well as the substantially larger disposable income of kuwaiti citizens

measuring the existence value of wildlife what do cvm estimates really show two research programs are brought together to contribute to the growing body of work on alternatives to standard welfare based approaches to environmental valuation and policy the first is the theoretical literature undermining the new welfare

analyzing public preferences and increasing acceptability for the renewable portfolio standard in korea abstract in order to respond to the challenge of climate change similar to other countries korea has announced various policies to vitalize the development and uptake of renewable energy the renewable portfolio standard rps is the most striking example of a policy in this area this study employs a conjoint survey and bayesian mixed logit model to analyze consumer preferences for specific attributes of the rps policy it analyzes households marginal willingness to pay mwtp for the rps with specific attributes and simulates the degree of household acceptability of the policy through a scenario analysis comparison between costs and benefits of implementing the policy is also attempted by analyzing the households mwtp with the actual transition expense of rps implementation incurred by electricity supply companies the simulation results provide implications for improving rps policy implementation households consider the creation of new jobs as the most important policy attribute followed by increase in electricity prices damage to forests reduction in co 2 emissions and length of power outages moreover the korean household is willing to accept an increase of up to 1 39 in its electricity prices relative to 2012 and the median mwtp of each household for rps implementation is krw 734 99 month usd 0 67 month

a cognitive miser theory of cooperators advantage the aa propose a new model of cooperators advantage depending neither on supplementary incentives nor on cooperators capacity to recognize and play selectively with other cooperators it depends rather on players making the play no play decision by the heuristic of projecting their own cooperate defect choices onto potential partners cooperators offer to play more often and fellow cooperators will more often accept their offer when certain boundary conditions are met this results in a higher expected payoff for cooperators than for defectors empirical support for this heuristic is suggested by expectations data from related social dilemma experiments moreover its use can be justified in bayesean terms our model brings behavioral decision theory s cognitive miser paradigm to bear on interdisciplinary concern with the evolution of cooperative behavior and shows how if other mechanisms provide a suitable initial kick cooperation can evolve in the absence of iteration and in large mobile societies

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

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

renewables portfolio individual preferences and social values towards res technologies abstract the massive deployment of renewable energy sources represents a high priority for greece in order to comply with the directive 2009 28 ec on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources by 2020 in this perspective aegean islands especially lesvos are endowed with a considerable potential of a portfolio of renewables a fact that the entrepreneurial interest has already been targeted however regulatory attempts for a massive penetration of renewables do not take seriously into account preferences and risk perceptions of local communities where the proposed projects are to be installed the aim of this study is to investigate individual preferences and social values towards specific technologies of renewables in lesvos island we apply an open ended contingent valuation survey in order to analyze factors shaping public attitudes towards a portfolio of renewable technologies and estimate the economic welfare willingness to pay of the preferred technologies we argue that such information is relevant for energy policy design and the establishment of effective measures for the promotion of renewable energy sources

public acceptance of biofuels abstract the public acceptance of biofuels in greece is examined in this work the analysis of 571 face to face interviews shows that 90 7 of the respondents believe that climatic changes are related to fossil fuel consumption while only 23 8 know the difference between biodiesel and bioethanol 76 1 believe that energy saving should precede the use of an alternative source of energy only 27 3 believe that priority must be given to biofuels over other renewable energy sources only 49 9 think that the use of biofuels can be an effective solution against climatic changes and 53 9 believe that the use of biofuels can be an effective solution for the energy problem finally 80 9 of the car owners are willing to use biofuels 44 8 are willing to pay the supplementary amount of 0 06 l of the fuel market price while the average amount reported as willing to pay was 0 079 l on top of the fuel market price furthermore eight models correlating the eight main responses with several socioeconomic variables are developed and analyzed those findings heave important policy implications related to the use and promotion of biofuels

wind farm externalities and public preferences for community consultation in ireland a discrete choice experiments approach abstract in ireland the deployment of onshore wind turbines has become progressively more difficult in some areas because of the potential negative externalities associated with their operation using a discrete choice experiment dce we employ a willingness to accept framework to estimate the external effects of wind turbines on local residents with the inclusion of community consultation and to quantify the compensation required to permit wind farms to be built in ireland our findings reveal that the majority of respondents are willing to make monetary tradeoffs to allow for wind power initiatives and we find that respondents require less compensation if provision is made for a community representative and setback distance is increased

households willingness to pay for safeguarding security of natural gas supply in electricity generation abstract security of energy supply is a major issue for all eu member states due to europe s increasing dependence on imported fossil fuel sources and the continuous rise in energy demand the latter is of particular importance in electricity sector given the continuously increasing use of gas for electricity generation in order to properly tackle with the problem concerted actions are required by the eu member states in several levels i e legislative political etc nevertheless these actions will come at an additional cost paid by the society either through increased electricity bills or through public financing for energy security investments thus such policies should be justified on the basis of cost benefit analysis towards this direction it may be necessary to take into account non market costs and benefits i e the value that consumers place on interruptions avoided in order to explore households perceptions and willingness to pay for securing gas supply for electricity production an empirical study was conducted by means of the contingent valuation method the results indicate that consumers are willing to pay a premium on their electricity bills in order to internalize the external costs of electricity production in terms of energy security which are caused from imported fuels

norms and economic motivation in the swedish green electricity market abstract the purpose of this paper is to provide an econometric analysis of the most important determinants of swedish households choice to pay a price premium for green electricity we draw on recent developments in the literature on integrating norm motivated behavior into neoclassical consumer theory and assume that individuals have a preference for keeping a self image as a morally responsible person consumer behavior in the green market place will then be heavily determined by how purchases of different goods affect this self image the analysis is based on postal survey responses from 655 swedish households which are analyzed within a binary choice econometric framework the results indicate that the impact of choosing green on the household budget largely influences the choice between green and brown electricity as does the degree of perceived personal responsibility for the issue and the felt ability to affect the outcome in a positive way we find limited support for the notion that perceptions about others behavior in general affect individual moral norms and ultimately expressed behavior but this is also complemented by the influence of explicit social influence the difficulty in observing others purchases makes it however difficult to distinguish between social and moral norms in the case of green electricity

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

gain loss and personal responsibility the role of motivation in resource valuation decision making the paper examines the issue of whether willingness to pay wtp or willingness to accept wta is the most appropriate indicator of the benefits or costs that people realize from a change in an environmental asset specifically the paper addresses the disparity between estimates obtained in contingent valuation research with these different measures and it suggests a reason for the disparity that requires an expanded model of valuation the model focuses on the context in which valuation decisions are made accounting for the role of change position gain or loss and motives like personal responsibility and altruism in influencing resource values the paper also calls for an expanded inductive approach to researching the issues raised by the model it reports some initial results from inductive research that suggest that wtp is the most appropriate indicator but the paper calls for further research that addresses the issues this finding raises

can renewable energy be financed with higher electricity prices evidence from a spanish region abstract in this paper we estimate the willingness to pay for mix of renewable sources of electric power by means of a discrete choice experiment survey conducted in spain in 2010 two main categories of power supply attributes are explored source of renewable power wind solar and biomass and the origin of such power the findings suggest that most consumers are not willing to pay a premium for increases in the shares of renewable in their electricity mix for two of the three renewable sources considered wind and biomass an increase of the renewable mix would require a discount instead we record positive willing to pay for increases in the share of both solar power and locally generated power however preferences for types of renewable solar and wind are found to be heterogeneous by classifying respondents in two groups according to the implied importance of the share of renewable sources in their power mix we identify a market segment consisting of 20 of respondents that could promote renewable energy in the absence of subsidies this is because such a segment shows willingness to pay higher than the current feed in tariffs

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

public support for hosting the olympic summer games in germany the cvm approach cities and their respective regions must weigh the merits of hosting major sport events including the olympic games this paper presents a contingent valuation method estimate of the monetary value of intangible benefits to germans of hosting the olympic summer games in a nationwide online survey 6977 respondents said whether they would support a referendum to host the games the survey employed a payment card format containing monthly tax amounts to elicit individual willingness to pay for the games over a five year period in the weighted sample 26 expressed an average willingness to pay of 51 willingness to pay varied widely across regions around cologne the average willingness to pay was 100 interval data hurdle models reveal that policy consequentiality and various intangible benefits increased willingness to pay aggregate willingness to pay over a five year period amounted to 46 billion which exceeded the estimated costs of the 2024 summer games for hamburg the findings have implicatio

the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth a multiple country test of an oath script hypothetical bias is one of the main issues bedeviling the field of nonmarket valuation the general criticism is that survey responses reflect how people would like to behave rather than how they actually behave in our study of climate change and carbon emissions reductions based on the increasing bulk of evidence from psychology and economics regarding the effects of making promises we investigate the effect of an oath script in a contingent valuation survey the survey was conducted in sweden and china and its results indicate that an oath script has significant effects on respondent behavior in answering willingness to pay wtp questions in both countries the shares of zero wtp responses and extremely high wtp responses decrease when an oath script is used resulting in lower variance furthermore the conditional wtp decreases in the chinese but not in the swedish sample we also find that the effect of the oath script is not generally dependent on respondent characteristics and the few differences we observe vary with the countries

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

valuing a wind farm construction a contingent valuation study in greece abstract our analysis is based on data from a double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation study implemented to elicit public attitudes towards renewable energy generation and their willingness to pay for the construction of a wind farm in the area of messanagros in the island of rhodes greece results indicate that there are significant positive values deriving from the proposed project respondents report a mean willingness to pay a premium in their bi monthly electric bills of 8 86 for the sole purpose of the construction of the wind farm the estimated economic benefits to the local population are weighed against the investment cost in a cost benefit analysis to inform policy making and implications for eu energy policy are provided

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

chains of cooperation threshold effects in collective action granovetter s threshold model of collective action shows how each new participant triggers others until the chain reaction reaches a gap in the distribution of thresholds hence outcomes depend on the network of social ties that channel the chain reactions however structural analysis is encumbered by the assumption that thresholds derive from changing marginal returns on investments in public goods a learning theoretic specification imposes less stringent assumptions about the rationality of the actors and is much better suited to a structural analysis computer simulations suggest that threshold effects may be the key to solving the coordination problem when individual choices are contingent on participation by others this interdependence facilitates the coordination of contributions needed to shift the bistable system from a noncooperative equilibrium to a cooperative one further simulations with low density networks show that these chain reactions require bridges that link socially distant actors supporting granovetter s case for the strength of weak ties

subsidies for residential solar photovoltaic energy systems in western australia distributional procedural and outcome justice governments seek to increase renewable energy capacity by providing subsidies to householders opting to install residential solar energy photovoltaic systems the funds used to pay for these subsidies are sourced from tax revenue or electricity tariffs paid by all community members including those on a low income this sees a redistribution of funds from all community members to installers of residential solar energy systems this research compared community attitudes towards distributional justice or the fairness of this redistribution of funds with outcome justice associated with the environmental benefits of renewable energy a randomised survey distributed in four metropolitan and two regional communities in western australian resulted in 295 responses a response rate of 22 33 of community members prioritised distributional justice 30 prioritised outcome justice and 37 indicated that they were unsure about their preference however support for renewable energy was found with 80 of respondents supportive of renewable energy subsidies and 68 supportive of renewable energy taxation including in electricity tariffs qualitative comments indicate that in spite of the preoccupation with distributional justice in the residential solar energy literature community members are concerned with procedural justice issues in this case procedural justice can be interpreted as government commitment to existing policy the expanded scope of renewable energy policy and enhanced regulations

cognitive ability and scale bias in the contingent valuation method this study investigates whether or not the scale bias found in contingent valuation cvm studies on mortality risk reductions is a result of cognitive constraints among respondents scale bias refers to insensitivity and non near proportionality of the respondents willingness to pay wtp to the size of the risk reduction two hundred swedish students participated in an experiment in which their cognitive ability was tested before they took part in a cvm study asking them about their wtp to reduce bus mortality risk the results imply that wtp answers from respondents with a higher cognitive ability are less flawed by scale bias

applying threshold models to donations to a green electricity fund this study applies a threshold model proposed by granovetter 1978 to analyze the diffusion process of donating behavior for renewable energy we first use a stated preference survey to estimate the determinants of a decision to support the donation scheme under various predicted participation rates using the estimated coefficients we simulate how herd behavior spreads and the participation rate reaches the equilibrium the participation rate at the equilibrium is estimated as 37 88 when the suggested donation is 500 yen while it is 17 76 when the suggested amount is 1000 yen the influence of environmentalism and altruism is also examined and we find that these motivations increase the participation rate by 31 51 on average

what determines urban households willingness to pay for co2 emission reductions in turkey a contingent valuation survey abstract this paper explores turkish urban households willingness to pay wtp for co2 emission reductions expected to result from improvements in power production a face to face questionnaire with a contingent valuation cv module prepared using the double bounded dichotomous choice elicitation framework was administered to 2422 respondents representative of urban turkey a developing country with low but rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions the determinants of wtp were identified by considering not only the impact of standard socio economic factors but also the effects of environmental knowledge attitudes and behaviour the relevance of the identity of the collection agent national versus international institutions in terms of trust people have towards them and the degree of perceived participation of others in the realization of the project our study confirms the existing literature in demonstrating that wtp figures reported by young and educated people that are active on environmental issues and who also possess material security and environmental knowledge are more likely to be high however their willingness to make contributions is hampered significantly by their belief that their fellow citizens will not contribute and the general lack of trust in institutions overall this study may be taken as a call to eliminate governance related uncertainties in climate change deals

how people respond to contingent valuation questions a verbal protocol analysis of willingness to pay for an environmental regulation abstract this paper investigates what a respondent is thinking when answering a willingness to pay question in a contingent valuation using a think aloud technique from psychology called verbal protocol analysis the willingness to pay responses we observed seem to be constructed from a variety of considerations including an obligation to pay a fair share of the cost of the solution and signaling concern for a larger set of environmental issues the finding that respondents seem to construct their values at the time they are asked rather than reporting a more well defined value is seen as consistent with over two decades of research on the psychology of decision making potential uses of verbal protocols in contingent valuation studies are also discussed

social networks and collective action a theory of the critical mass iii most analyses of collective action agree that overcoming the freerider problem requires organizing potential contributors thus making their decisions interdependent the potential for organizing depends on the social ties in the group particularly on the overall density or frequency of ties on the extent to which they are centralized in a few individuals and on the costs of communicating and coordinating actions through these ties mathematical analysis and computer simulations extend a formal microsocial theory of interdependent collective action to treat social networks and organization costs as expected the overall density of social ties in a group improves its prospects for collective action more significant because less expected are the findings that show that the centralization of network ties always has a positive effect on collective action and that the negative effect of costs on collective action declines as the group s resource or interest heterogeneity increases these nonobvious resu

renewable electricity as a differentiated good the case of the republic of korea this paper examines the willingness for korean consumers to pay a premium for renewable electricity under a differentiated good framework by applying the contingent valuation method korean consumers have been required to pay for their use of renewable electricity as of 2012 first we find that korean consumers recognise renewable electricity as a differentiated good from traditional electricity generated from fossil fuels or nuclear energy the mean willingness to pay to use renewable electricity is usd 1 26 per month second we confirm the existence of perfect substitution relationships among variant renewable technologies which suggests that korean consumers do not perceive them as differentiated goods one reason for this perception is that korean consumers are more inclined to favour economic feasibility over sustainability or the availability of the resource stock when choosing between renewable technology types in sum we can say that korean consumers recognise renewable electricity as a differentiated good but that they do not differentiate between variant renewable technologies thus the imposition of the cost of renewable electricity on consumers in the form of increased electricity charges would be acceptable to consumers as long as any price rise properly reflects their preferences

assessment of korean customers willingness to pay with rps abstract to increase the use of renewable energy the korean government will introduce the renewable portfolio standard rps in 2012 the rps places responsibility for extra renewable energy costs on the consumers and allows price competition among different renewable sources accordingly this study analyzes through the contingent valuation cv the willingness of korean households to pay more for electricity generated by wind photovoltaic pv and hydropower our empirical results show that although the willingness to pay or wtp was highest for wind power and lowest for hydropower the differences in wtp among the renewable sources were statistically insignificant this suggests that korean consumers prefer a renewable portfolio that minimizes power supply costs the average wtp for all three energy types was krw 1562 7 usd 1 350 per month per household which was approximately 3 7 of the average monthly electricity bill in 2010 this amount represents only 58 2 of what the korean government allocated in its budget to the new and renewable energy dissemination program in 2010 thus our results imply that the promotion of the new and renewable energy dissemination program may be difficult only with the wtp for electricity generated from renewable sources specifically the mean wtp will not support the set aside dissemination capacity for pv after 2014

the economic value of south korea s renewable energy policies rps rfs and rho a contingent valuation study abstract amid growing environmental awareness the diffusion of renewable energy has attracted greater attention from both the public and policymakers to respond to global environmental concerns the korean government implemented a renewable portfolio standard rps in the electric power sector in 2012 it plans to introduce a renewable fuel standard rfs and a renewable heat obligation rho in the transportation and heating sectors in 2015 and 2016 respectively as such this study applies the contingent valuation method to elicit the willingness of korean households to pay more for their energy bills in order to support enforcement of these three policies the analysis considers the economic values of each individual policy as well as the aggregate value at the national level respondents mean willingness to pay for rps rfs and rho are estimated as 3287 5 4432 9 and 3971 1 korean won per month respectively these are equivalent to 5 8 1 5 and 2 0 respectively of current average monthly electricity transportation and heating expenses although all three policies appear highly feasible a cautious approach is necessary given the large proportion of respondents with zero willingness to pay furthermore although the level of willingness to pay for renewable electricity in korea has increased in recent years it remains low when compared to other leading countries such as japan

contingent valuation theoretical advances and empirical tests since the noaa panel beyond a simple cost effectiveness role and for many policy issues where all the goods or impacts at issue are not readily priced in the market the relevance of economics depends to a large degree on the ability to use contingent valuation cv and other closely related stated preference approaches the government s use of cv as a tool to place a monetary value on damages from the exxon valdez oil spill brought forth strong industry objections to the use of cv in response the national oceanic and atmospheric administration noaa one of the trustee agencies in the exxon valdez case commissioned a blue ribbon panel chaired by kenneth arrow and robert solow to review the use of cv in natural resource damage assessment proceedings the panel s report arrow et al and transmittal letter to the noaa general counsel concluded cv studies can produce estimates reliable enough to be the starting point for a judicial or administrative determination of nat

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

carbon capture and storage on its way to large scale deployment social acceptance and willingness to pay in germany abstract carbon capture and storage ccs is an emerging technology to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants in the wake of a rapidly changing german energy system ccs can play an important role by means of an online survey among 130 university students in dresden this paper investigates the level and influencing factors of social acceptance of ccs furthermore the individual willingness to pay for ccs and renewable power delivery is measured and compared through a choice model the survey results reveal that the attitude towards ccs is neutral moreover it is shown that acceptance of ccs is an important factor for the willingness to pay the level of willingness to pay for ccs technology is much lower than for renewable energy

conceptualizing energy security abstract energy security 1 is one of the main targets of energy policy however the term has not been clearly defined which makes it hard to measure and difficult to balance against other policy objectives we review the multitude of definitions of energy security they can be characterized according to the sources of risk the scope of the impacts and the severity filters in the form of the speed size sustention spread singularity and sureness of impacts using a stylized case study for three european countries we illustrate how the selection of conceptual boundaries along these dimensions determines the outcome this can be avoided by more clearly separating between security of supply and other policy objectives this leads us to the definition of energy security as the continuity of energy supplies relative to demand

contingent valuation and the activation of environmental norms abstract this paper uses contingent valuation cvm as the context in which to explore the implications of a model of altruistic norm activation a model is presented which provides a framework for thinking about the factors that individuals consider when formulating their responses to cvm questions and the processes by which they bring such factors together the activation of personal environmental norms and hence positive willingness to pay depends on four main categories of belief awareness and acceptance of environmental need consequences of personal action responsibility for personal action and acceptance of policy initiatives the model is illustrated with a qualitative case study and some of the implications for cvm are considered in light of these findings it is argued that whilst notions of fairness may not present problems from a demand prediction economic standpoint such notions may be more problematic for the cost benefit analysis use of results

coherent arbitrariness stable demand curves without stable preferences economic theories of valuation generally assume that prices of commodities and assets are derived from underlying fundamental values for example in finance theory asset prices are believed to reflect the market estimate of the discounted present value of the asset s payoff stream in labor theory the supply of labor is established by the tradeoff between the desire for consumption and the displeasure of work finally and most importantly for this chapter consumer microeconomics assumes that the demand curves for consumer products chocolates cds movies vacations drugs and so forth can be ultimately traced to the valuation of pleasures that consumers anticipate receiving from these products because it is difficult as a rule to measure fundamental values directly empirical tests of economic theory typically examine whether the effects of changes in circumstances on valuations are consistent with theoretical prediction for example whether labor supply responds appropriately to a change in the wage rate whether compensated demand curves for commodities are downward sloping or whether stock prices respond in the predicted way to share repurchases however such comparative static relationships are a necessary but not sufficient condition for fundamental valuation e g summers 1986 becker 1962 was perhaps the first to make this point explicitly when he observed that consumers choosing commodity bundles randomly from their budget set would nevertheless produce downward sloping demand curves

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

explaining demand for green electricity using data from all u s utilities abstract green electricity programs enable households to voluntarily contribute to the development of renewable electricity by purchasing green electricity through their local utility using a dataset of all utilities in the united states this paper explores the utility consumer and program characteristics that influence participation levels in green electricity as well as whether a utility chooses to offer a program among other results we find that the key determinants of program participation are the education of the consumer base and the affordability of the green electricity program our results enhance understanding of private provision of environmental public goods and could aid in ex ante evaluations of whether a green electricity program is likely to cover its administrative costs or be a cost effective way of improving environmental quality

contingent valuation from dubious to hopeless abstract approximately 20 years ago peter diamond and i wrote an article for this journal analyzing contingent valuation methods at that time peter s view was that contingent valuation was hopele

modeling the effect of social factors on improving biodiversity protection the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of social factors expressed as social and institutional trust social norms and social networks on the decision of individuals to pay for improvement of environmental protection of biodiversity for this purpose an empirical study was carried out in two national parks of northern greece three scenarios were proposed differing in the management options regulatory market based and community based scenarios and the payment mechanism our empirical results show that social capital variables especially social norms and social trust have a strong influence both on the decision of individuals to pay and the specific amount stated specifically we find that social norms have a positive influence for the willingness to pay wtp of individuals of a state tax and an entrance fee regulatory and market based scenario respectively furthermore social trust has a positive impact for the wtp through an entrance fee and a community tax market based and community based scenario respectively we also find a higher wtp of individuals towards the market based scenario where participation of citizens is higher compared to the current management status concerning the impact of demographic factors we find that income does not influence the specific amount stated by individuals

assessing the risk profile to security of supply in the electricity market of great britain security of electricity supply has been an important topic of growing concern in the united kingdom as the margin of supply over demand tightens and the risk to security of supply widens the risk profile to security of supply is presented in the united kingdom in terms of the conventional metrics capacity margin and loss of load expectation however increasing levels of disruption in the power sector arising from a combination of policy technological and customer change challenge this traditional approach to characterise the risk to security of supply the paper presents a framework to evaluate the risk profile to security of supply through a series of probabilistic metrics that establish the expected magnitude power and energy likelihood frequency and duration of encountering supply shortfalls this detailed characterisation of the risk profile enables risks to be fully identified assessed and prioritised facilitating effective risk management

information bias in contingent valuation effects of personal relevance quality of information and motivational orientation abstract a laboratory experiment examined the potential for information bias in contingent valuation cv consistent with the view that information about a public or private good can function as a persuasive communication willingness to pay wtp was found to increase with the quality of arguments used to describe the good especially under conditions of high personal relevance under low personal relevance wtp for a public but not for a private good was higher when an altruistic as opposed to an individualistic orientation was activated it is concluded that the nature of the information provided in cv surveys can profoundly affect wtp estimates and that subtle contextual cues can seriously bias these estimates under conditions of low personal relevance

enhancing public acceptance of renewable heat obligation policies in south korea consumer preferences and policy implications abstract renewable heat obligation rho policies have continued to attract global attention and the south korean government plans to start enforcing these policies in 2016 to ensure the effectiveness of rho policies various preferences of stakeholders including end users should be considered in policy development because their benefits and costs can vary according to their level of obligation a choice experiment was conducted to analyze the preferences of end users for two types of rho policies one aimed at heat suppliers and the other at building owners the results indicate the necessity to focus on costs when designing rho policies because this element was the most important factor influencing the public s acceptance of these policies and suggest that for rho policies aimed at heat suppliers the government should convince end users of the stability of the heat supply a factor considered to be important by consumers finally the minimum level of the subsidy required to gain public approval of both types of rho was examined the annual government subsidies for the rho for heating suppliers is expected to be krw 330 billion which can be covered by collecting taxes from those consumers not subject to these obligations the results for rhos for building owners indicate krw 900 billion to 1 8 trillion as the amount of subsidy spending required of the government