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

an experimental investigation of the hahn noll revenue neutral auction for emissions licenses abstract this paper reports on three series of laboratory experiments designed to test the performance of the hahn noll revenue neutral auction rna an alternative institution a no rebate uniform price auction upa is also examined as a benchmark in these experiments the rna markets were little different from upa markets in terms of either prices or market efficiencies the two institutions did differ in terms of the distribution of the gains from exchange and of the propensity of bidders to engage in a certain type of overbidding

implications of energy subsidy reform in india abstract this paper analyses welfare impact of energy subsidy reform in india based on the data from 1970 71 to 2014 15 to this end auto regressive distributed lag ardl model and error correction model ecm have been estimated to quantify the short run and long run price and the income elasticity of various energy products the results show that the price elasticity of demand for all fossil fuels is low but the respective income elasticity is higher therefore an increase in the general price level caused by the subsidy reform will lead to the erosion of real income and will have related welfare implications in india the results also reveal that energy expenditure will obviously increase and hence energy consumption will decline depending upon the extent of the withdrawal of subsidy therefore policy makers in india while undertaking further reforms must ensure that the subsidy reaches to those who truly deserve so that the socioeconomic casualty of reforms can be minimized along with achieving fiscal goals

resolving differences in willingness to pay and willingness to accept reply gwendolyn c morrison 1997 raises a logical point regarding our experimental test of the divergence between willingness to pay wtp and willingness to accept wta measures of economic value shogren et al 1994 she argues that our design does not provide a true test of the existence of a fundamental endowment effect since we did not control for the potential of a pivoting indifference map daniel kahneman et al 1990 she concludes that even though our ev idence shows that the mean wtp and wta bids for market goods with close substitutes e g candy bars and coffee mugs converge after market experience the endowment effect might still be alive and well albeit at statisti cally insignificant levels

why does the combination of the european union emissions trading scheme and a renewable energy target makes economic sense abstract the european climate and energy mix of targets and policies has been criticised by many economists in particular it is often argued that the renewable energy targets do not make economic sense because they represent an expensive option to reduce co2 emissions within a cap and trade scheme such as the european union emissions trading scheme eu ets in addition it has also been claimed that support for renewable electricity deployment negatively interacts with the eu ets having a dampening effect on the co2 price which favours the dirtiest technologies and is detrimental for the greener ones in this article we argue that this mainstream economic view is short sighted and that a multidisciplinary economic analysis of the climate and energy policy mix is required mainstream economic analysis is based on a narrow approach for the assessment of instrument combinations and neglects relevant insights from several economic disciplines including innovation economics and political economy approaches in reality economic theory supports the combination of an ets and renewable energy targets the existence of different policy goals and market failures the demand pull influence of renewable energy policies on innovation a political economy approach and the different risk exposure of renewable energy technologies call for a policy mix although policy combinations are not a panacea and bring problems on their own the aforementioned negative interaction between renewable energy deployment and the carbon price in the eu ets can be mitigated through appropriate coordination and or instrument choice and design

financial incentives to mobilise local citizens as investors in low carbon technologies a systematic literature review abstract mobilising greater levels of private finance through local citizen investment in low carbon technologies can help bridge the capital shortfall to meeting climate objectives while also building societal support for the low carbon transition within this context we undertake a systematic review of literature assessing the impact of technology specific economic and financial incentives promoting greater levels of investment in low carbon technologies from local citizen investors both individuals and community groups we focus in particular on the impact of feed in tariffs compared to quota schemes grants tax incentives and soft loans the analysis suggests that local citizen investors do not necessarily act in an economically rational manner in response to these incentives it underscores the importance of understanding the preferences of target demographics the local context as well as the characteristics of the technologies in question and suggests interventions should be considered as part of wider policy packages while identifying challenges to be overcome through instrument design we find that feed in tariffs grants and tax incentives can be successful in mobilising greater levels of investment from local citizen investors but that soft loans tend to be less effective as a stand alone instrument the review identifies areas meriting further exploration in this emerging field of research

a framework for scaling and framing policy problems in sustainability abstract it is argued that a necessary but lacking component of our approach in seeking policy responses to sustainability issues is some repeatable means whereby the relative magnitude and characteristics of these various policy problems faced in a given context can be analysed and described to this end a simple and tentative framework is constructed based on the definition of the key attributes which shape policy problems pertaining to environmental change these are spatial scale of cause and effect magnitude timing and longevity of possible impacts reversibility mensurability complexity and connectivity nature of cause s relevance to the given polity tractability availability and acceptability of means public concern and existence of goals these attributes inform a general taxonomy of micro meso and macro problems the attributes and the taxonomy are described with supporting examples to illustrate possible application of the framework it is discussed briefly in the contexts of operationalising the precautionary principle and policy instrument choice it is concluded that the framework can help focus debate and operationalise vague principles introduce relativity into the notion of sustainability and make policy choice more efficient

electricity subsidy reform in indonesia demand side effects on electricity use abstract indonesia s budget has for years been burdened by large subsidies for electricity consumption a series of recent reforms has delivered a substantial reduction in these subsidies in this paper we estimate demand side effects of these reforms on electricity use our analysis utilizes a three dimensional dataset covering six consumer groups 16 regions and 1992 2015 we control for various fixed effects and use an instrumental variable approach our estimates suggest that subsidy reductions since 2013 had induced savings in annual electricity use of around 7 relative to the no reform counterfactual as of 2015 the phase out of remaining subsidies has the potential to generate further improvements in the efficiency of electricity use while freeing up resources for other priorities such as infrastructure spending

preservation or use a contingent valuation study of wilderness designation in utah evidence of strong opposition to wilderness proposals in utah suggested that the non market value of retaining those areas in multiple use management might be significant a contingent value analysis of both supporters and opponents of the two major proposals for wilderness designation in utah indicated that there existed significant non market willingness to pay on the part of opponents and that standard contingent valuation practice which does not explicitly consider these values could lead to a mis estimation of aggregate willingness to pay

modelling the non market environmental costs and benefits of biodiversity projects using contingent valuation data cv studies rarely ask willingness to accept wta questions yet there are a range of environmentalprojects where there are likely to be potential losersas well as gainers this paper presents evidence fromsix biodiversity projects that the inclusion ofcontingent compensation payments from thoserespondents who preferred the status quo cansubstantially reduce net project benefits even whenthe proportion of losers is relatively small astatistical model for estimating the mean welfaremeasure from dichotomous choice data which allows forboth positive wtp zero wtp and wta is described asmany environmental projects are likely to create bothgainers and losers we recommend that cv analysts giveserious consideration to the collection and analysisof wta data otherwise they risk generating biasedestimates of project benefits

the efficiency of ireland s renewable energy feed in tariff refit for wind generation ireland s renewable energy feed in tariff refit for wind generation has some unusual features making it different from other refit schemes around the world by utilising an annual floor price element the scheme presents an option value to the contract holder which to date has gone unnoticed or unvalued in the market by employing an option pricing framework this paper has quantified for the first time in the public domain the expected costs and value of the irish refit support scheme for wind generation while the cost of the refit scheme to the electricity consumer appears to be lower than the cost of schemes in other countries significant inefficiencies exist as a result of the structure of the scheme the irish refit scheme is contrasted with a single fixed price support scheme and the analysis suggests that the fixed price scheme can provide a similar or greater incentive to the wind sector at half the cost to the end electricity consumer and may also prove more compatible with consumers desire to reduce inter year electricity portfolio cost volatility

combinations of support instruments for renewable electricity in europe a review abstract the aim of this paper is to review the combinations of res e support instruments in the european union eu using different sources of data it is shown that combinations are indeed a widespread phenomenon in the eu member states not much attention has been paid to the combinations of primary instruments with other secondary instruments for the same renewable energy technology it is found that the most frequent mixes of instruments are between feed in laws feed in tariffs and increasingly feed in premiums on the one hand and investment subsidies soft loans and tax incentives on the other in a broad sense the policy mix between primary and secondary instruments has experienced some changes over the last decade mostly related to changes in the primary instruments themselves exclusion i e ineligibility to apply for an instrument when the res e generator is already being financially supported by another instrument and explicit coordination of support under primary and secondary instruments do not seem to be common elements in these policy combinations

a randomized response approach to dichotomous choice contingent valuation in this paper we combine dichotomous choice contingent valuation dc cv with the randomized response rr method for asking sensitive survey questions rr increases respondents anonymity by allowing them to answer a sensitive question without revealing with certainty their true response we combine rr with dc cv to test for response effects in the valuation of a public good in a setting of expected social pressure while there are practical implementation issues our findings suggest that the rr technique is a useful tool for exploring social context effects rather than generalize from our pre test results we instead emphasize the development of the experimental technique

estimates of energy subsidies in china and impact of energy subsidy reform abstract for a transitional economy such as china some energy subsidies are reasonable and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals however with rising energy prices and environmental concerns we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies energy demand supply fundamentals and climate change considerations energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use efficiency and the choice of fuel source this paper applies the price gap approach to estimate china s energy subsidies results indicate that china s energy subsidies amounted to cny 356 73 billion in 2007 equivalent to 1 43 of gdp subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors furthermore a cge model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables we conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment

cross subsidy removal in electricity pricing in india abstract in india electricity price for agriculture is cross subsidized by the industries the indian government has started a process through which the extent of cross subsidization is gradually being reduced the idea is to replace the cross subsidization by 2030 and introduce a rate structure that will increase with the amount of electricity usage this paper uses the computable general equilibrium framework to evaluate the ex ante impact of these policy changes on the indian economy the paper finds that removal of cross subsidies will increase inflation particularly food inflation resulting in a decline in household incomes more so in rural areas replacing cross subsidies with a progressive rate structure will compensate for only a small part of the negative effects of the removal of cross subsidies four other policy options are also investigated targeting household incomes food inflation and general inflation most of these options do not work as the required increase in budget deficit is unlikely to be bearable to the government the only feasible option appears to be a direct price subsidy to agricultural sector in this case food prices are held down inflation is moderate and effect on household incomes is minimal

modelling winners and losers in contingent valuation of public goods appropriate welfare measures and econometric analysis contingent valuation is now the most widely used method for valuing non marketed goods in cost benefit analysis yet despite the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others most studies restrict willingness to pay to being non negative this can result in significant errors in policymaking this paper examines the importance of this explores appropriate welfare measures for assessing losses and gains demonstrates how these can be elicited explicitly highlights the sensitivity of the results of such studies to the econometric specification employed and suggests ways of dealing with it finally the implica tions for policy are examined assessment including passive use values this technique has become the most widely used method for placing values on non marketed goods this paper examines some outstanding issues in relation to the validity of the method as a basis for policy making in particular most studies ignore the fact that many externalities manifest themselves as costs to some and benefits to others in addition the results of contingent valuation studies are often quite sensitive to the econometric specification assumed the significance of these issues is examined techniques for their resolution are outlined and the implications for public policy are highlighted the importance for economists of the debate on the validity of contingent valuation was emphasised in a series of papers from a symposium on the contingent valuation method cvm published in the journal of economic perspectives in 1994 in his paper portney 1994 predicted that whether the economics profession liked it or not the cvm would inevitably play a role in public policy formulation and therefore it was important that economists be aware of the controversies and have their say on the topic portney s prediction was correct and contingent valuation has become a routine approach to valuing environmental goods with hundreds of studies being produced each year 1 the cvm places a value on a change in the provision of a public good by asking households in a survey how much they are willing to pay for the change or the minimum compensation they would require if the change were not to happen the role that contingent valuation studies play in public policy is

renewable electricity support systems are feed in systems taking the lead abstract support systems for renewable energy sourced electricity res e can be classified into price and quantity based systems their most representative instruments are feed in systems price based and quota systems e g green certificates or a renewable portfolio standard quantity based the origins of these support systems are quite different and are motivated by different political and economic needs likewise their geographical distribution and effectiveness also differ worldwide feed in systems are the most widespread res e support system in recent years some classical quota countries have partially or even totally changed to feed in systems feed in systems seem to encourage higher res e deployment technology diversity and investor security although the manufacturing capacity for certain res e technologies has been more developed in some feed in countries lately this has changed to some extent due to the incorporation of emerging countries in the res e industry traditionally quota systems appeared to be more compatible with liberalisation of the electricity market however since the introduction of the premium system this argument can be countered since feed in premiums can be considered compatible with the electricity market as quota systems regarding the price paid for res e in quota countries higher green certificate prices have not led to higher res e quantities moreover the relative support levels in quota countries are higher on average than in fit countries contradicting the common argument that quota systems are more cost effective additionally feed in systems especially if stepped tariffs are designed encourage higher res e geographical dispersion avoiding the concentration of res e facilities in just a few locations which can lead to nimby not in my back yard syndrome all these factors may explain the steady spread of feed in systems worldwide the purpose of this paper is to assess the performance of quota and feed in systems thereby contributing to the worldwide debate on the suitability of the different res e support systems

the impact of power market reforms on electricity price cost margins and cross subsidy levels a cross country panel data analysis abstract one of the main expectations from power market reform has been a reduction in both price cost margins and cross subsidy levels between industrial and residential consumers this paper focuses on this issue by looking at the impact of the electricity industry reforms on residential and industrial electricity price cost margins and their effect on cross subsidy levels between consumer groups using panel data for 63 developed and developing countries covering the period 1982 2009 empirical models are developed and analyzed the research findings suggest that there is no uniform pattern for the impact of reform process as a whole on price cost margins and cross subsidy levels each individual reform step has different impact on price cost margins and cross subsidy levels for each consumer and country group our findings imply that reform steps have different impacts in different countries which supports the idea reform prescription for a specific country cannot easily and successfully be transferred to another one so transferring the formal and economic structure of a successful power market in a developed country to developing countries is not a sufficient condition for good economic performance of the electricity industries in developing countries furthermore the study suggests that power consumption income level and country specific features constitute other important determinants of electricity price cost margins and cross subsidy levels

universal health insurance in the clinton plan coverage as a tax financed public good the financing arrangements embodied in the clinton health reform plan involve some important differences in the way in which public goods are usually financed the subsidies to small low wage firms mandated to provide benefits distort markets in both labor and products and offer incentives for the creation of small firms in addition the financing scheme implicitly envisions a head tax on families at modest income levels but offers a possible rationale for it nevertheless the main reason for many of the financing features appears to be an attempt to hold down the apparent budgetary cost of universal coverage

alarmist decisions with divergent risk information receipt of multiple sources of risk information ideally should foster sounder decisions under uncertainty this paper s original survey results for environmental risks suggest that the learning process is reasonable in many respects bur it does not accord with a rational bayesian learning model divergent risk assessments from different sources produce extreme violations of rationality as there is inordinate weight on the high risk assessment this alarmist reaction holds for both government and industry information sources this phenomenon may account for the commonly observed phenomenon of public overreaction to highly publicised risks

the malaysian fifth fuel policy re strategising the malaysian renewable energy initiatives abstract the power industry is the most crucial and strategic sector for any country to achieve its vision due to the fast depletion and high cost of fossil fuel this is now a threat to sustainable growth attention is now focused on renewable energies as an alternative in malaysia renewable energy was included in the 8th malaysia plan 2000 2005 with a target of 500 mw out of the 20 000 mw total generation capacity however for the first 10 years 2000 2010 only 41 5 mw planting up has been achieved this paper recommends strategies implementation mechanism and financial framework to ensure success of the initiatives some of the recommendations were currently being implemented such as the green technology fund and the fit in tariff in addition this paper proposes the incorporation of a malaysian renewable energy development board with wide legislative and executive powers that would be a strong champion of the re initiatives its primary function would be inter alia cross ministry coordination tariff fixation regulating utilization of renewable biomass waste institute fiscal incentives such as investment incentives tax holidays removal of barriers and initiate government funded research development and demonstration rd d initiatives

economic modelling of price support mechanisms for renewable energy case study on ireland abstract the irish government is considering its future targets policy and programmes for renewable energy for the period beyond 2005 this follows a review in 2003 of policy options that identified a number of different measures to stimulate increased deployment of renewable energy generation capacity this paper expands this review with an economic analysis of renewable energy price support mechanisms in the irish electricity generation sector the focus is on three primary price support mechanisms quota obligations feed in tariffs and competitive tender schemes the green x computer model is utilised to characterise the res e potential and costs in ireland up until and including 2020 the results from this dynamic software tool are used to compare the different support mechanisms in terms of total costs to society and the average premium costs relative to the market price for electricity the results indicate that in achieving a 20 res e proportion of gross electricity consumption by 2020 a tender scheme provides the least costs to society over the period 2006 2020 but only in case there is limited or no strategic bidding considering however strategic bidding a feed in tariff can be the more efficient solution between the other two support mechanisms the total costs to society are highest for feed in tariffs fit until 2013 at which point the costs for the quota system begin to rise rapidly and overtake fit in 2014 2020 the paper also provides a sensitivity analysis of the support mechanism calculations by varying default parameters such as the interim 2010 target the assumed investment risk levels and the amount of biomass co firing this analysis shows that a 2010 target of 15 rather than 13 2 generates lower costs for society over the whole period 2006 2020 but higher costs for the res e strategy over the period 2006 2010

negative values in vickrey auctions some people assign negative values for new products sold on laboratory auction blocks i e irradiated meat we explore bidding behavior in two vickrey auctions when people have positive and negative induced values for the good aggregate bidding in the second price auction is precise but biased highest value positive bidders tend to overstate benefits whereas lowest negative bidders understate losses in contrast bidding behavior in the random nth price auction is demand revealing irrespective of induced value but it is imprecise examining on and off margin bidding behavior we cannot conclude that any segments of demand are significantly different than the demand revealing regression line

testing willingness to pay models of discrete choice contingent valuation survey data this paper considers models of willingness to pay wtp based on dichotomous choice contingent valuation survey data and examines the effect of the survey design on tests of goodness of fit simulations show that eliciting single binary responses result in tests that have low power in detecting departures from the maintained distribution of wtp unless the sample size is truly large the power of the tests improves if a follow up question and a moderate number of sets of bid values are used and if the bids are not placed on the extreme tails of the wtp distribution

comparing the innovation effects of support schemes for renewable electricity technologies a function of innovation approach abstract the aim of this paper is to provide a comparative assessment of the innovation effects of instruments which support the diffusion of renewable electricity technologies with a functions oriented technological innovation system perspective the paper provides a link between two major streams of the literature the functions of innovation systems and the literature on renewable electricity support schemes we show that when a functional perspective is adopted feed in tariffs are likely to be superior to other policy instruments quotas with tradable green certificates and tendering although they still need to be complemented with other instruments most importantly direct r d support furthermore those innovation effects are affected by the specific design elements of the instruments chosen

bidding behavior in experimental auctions with positive and negative values abstract we test for consistency between bids from endowment auctions that allow positive or negative bids for an exchange between two items and bids from prior full bidding auctions for the same items results suggest that positive wtp bids in the endowment auction are demand revealing but subjects overbid in absolute value their negative wta values wta bids were lower in a random n th price auction than in a 5th price auction

addressing negative willingness to pay in dichotomous choice contingent valuation this paper has four purposes first we outline the controversy surroundingthe issue of negative willingness to pay wtp in contingent valuation cv studies second we use monte carlo simulation to examine theperformance of alternative distributionalassumptions in estimating wtp in the presenceof varying proportions of the populationholding negative wtp values we focus ondichotomous choice cv dc cv where negativewtp values may be especially difficult todetect third we extend the simulation toinvestigate the performance of the mixturemodels that have recently been proposed forhandling identifying non positive wtp values fourth we extend the simulation to investigatethe performance of the nonparametric lowerbound turnbull approach results indicate thatthe relative performance of the dc cv modelingalternatives evaluated here which assumepositive wtp varies across the simulationsetting e g proportion of negative wtp butnone can be said to reasonably solve theproblem ex post this underscores theimportance of ex ante efforts to identify ifnegative wtp is likely to be prominent in agiven valuation setting in such cases appropriately handling negative wtp must beaddressed through ex ante survey design andmodeling choices that allow negative wtp

household welfare implications of fossil fuel subsidy reforms in developing countries abstract with over 200 countries reaching an agreement with the stated aim of restricting global warming to well below 2 c above pre industrial levels the most comprehensive climate change agreement was recently signed though most of the hard work lies ahead it marks an important first step for the collective global community to address climate change fossil fuels continue to remain one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions and for many developing countries high levels fossil fuels continues to enable an overconsumption of fossil fuels given the sensitivity of governments to subsidy reforms this study examines the household welfare implications of the removal of fossil fuel subsidies it finds that while welfare implications are unambiguously positive for government the results are mixed for private households although in an overwhelming majority of cases the results are positive however even in the cases where the welfare implications are negative for private households we find that it is possible for governments to carry out the reforms in such a way as to be welfare improving to households incomes by compensating them with some of the fiscal savings gained from the subsidy reform

using laboratory experimental auctions in marketing research a case study of new packaging for fresh beef this paper illustrates the use of laboratory experimental auctions in a pretest market research program for new products we review the experimental auctions literature discuss the range of auction mechanisms available and present the advantages and disadvantages of using a particular mechanism for a laboratory pretest market we then present a step by step example of how a theoretically incentive compatible auction mechanism fifth price sealed bid was used in a laboratory pretest market for vacuum packaged beef based on the illustration we discuss the potential for using laboratory experimental auctions in pretest market research we present the limitations that may be encountered in such applications and outline research aimed at improving the behavioral properties of the technique

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

is china s electricity price cross subsidy policy reasonable comparative analysis of eastern central and western regions abstract proper handling of the electricity price cross subsidy is the key to reducing the power cost of industrial and commercial users and is also the key task of china s new round of power system reform first this paper analyzes the development history of china s electricity price policy and describes the problems faced by the government at different stages second a cross subsidy calculation model is established and a method for calculating the scale and degree of cross subsidy is proposed third the concept of reasonable cross subsidy is defined and a method for calculating the reasonable cross subsidy ratio is proposed finally jiangsu henan and qinghai provinces are selected as representatives of the eastern central and western regions of china to analyze whether the current china cross subsidy policy is reasonable the results show that compared with the economically underdeveloped provinces of henan and qinghai in jiangsu province where the economy is more developed the residential and agricultural users have higher levels of cross subsidy but the ratio of reasonable cross subsidy is lower this shows that there is an unreasonable situation in china s electricity price cross subsidy policy

testing viability of cross subsidy using time variant price elasticities of industrial demand for electricity indian experience abstract indian electric tariffs are characterized by very high rates for industrial and commercial classes to permit subsidized electric consumption by residential and agricultural customers we investigate the viability of this policy using monthly data for 1997 2003 on electric consumption by a few large industrial customers under the aegis of a small distribution company in the state of uttar pradesh for a given price cost ratio it can be shown that if the cross subsidizing class electricity demand is sufficiently elastic increasing the class rates fail to recover incremental cross subsidy necessary to support additional revenues for subsidized classes this suboptimality is tested by individually estimating time variant price elasticities of demand for these industrial customers using box cox and linear regressions we find that at least for some of these customers cross subsidy was suboptimal prior to as late as october 2001 when rates were changed following reforms

preference elicitation under oath eliciting sincere preferences for non market goods remain a challenge due to the discrepency between hypothetical and real behavior and false zeros the gap arises because people either overstate hypothetical values or understate real commitments or a combination of both herein we examine whether the traditional real world institution of the solemn oath can improve preference elicitation applying the social psychology theory on the oath as a truth telling commitment device we ask our bidders to swear on their honour to give honest answers prior to participating in an incentive compatible second price auction the oath is an ancillary mechanism to commit bidders to bid sincerely in a second price auction results from our induced valuation testbed treatments suggest that the oath only auctions outperform all our other auctions real and hypothetical in our homegrown valuation treatments eliciting preferences for dolphin protection the oath only design induced people to treat as binding both their experimental budget constraint i e lower values on the high end of the value distribution and participation constraint i e positive values in place of the zero bids used to opt out of auction based on companion treatments we show the oath works through an increase in the willingness to tell the truth due to a strengthening of the intrinsic motivation to do so

a 100 year review of electricity policy in ireland 1916 2015 abstract over the past century ireland s electricity sector has undergone a significant transformation this paper documents the nation s struggle to build an electricity system to improve security of electricity supply through portfolio diversification and to promote indigenous energy sources this was a challenge for an electrically isolated island with little natural resources the paper also identifies the ineffective policy decisions that left ireland exposed to the 1970s energy crises the crises did however provide a clear impetus for focusing irish energy policy going forward the successful deployment and integration of large scale wind power was due to strong national and supranational policy decisions in 2015 ireland had the third highest wind energy share of national electricity demand 22 8 of all iea wind member countries the paper also traces ireland s transition through market reform regional fragmentation and looks onwards to the eu internal market for electricity in essence this paper provides a holistic view of the implications of various policy decisions on the electricity sector along with the stresses of external factors on the electricity market and should be useful for policy makers elsewhere faced with similar decisions

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