the influence of design dimensions on stated choices in an environmental context discrete choice experiments are increasingly used in the context of environmental valuation however there is still little known about the influence of the complexity of the choice task on model outcomes in this paper we investigate task complexity in terms of the design dimensionality of the choice experiment by systematically varying the number of choice sets alternatives attributes and levels as well as the level range we largely follow a design of designs approach originally introduced in transportation first we analyse the influence of the design dimensionality on participants dropout behaviour finding that the probability to drop out of the survey is influenced by socio demographic characteristics and increases with the number of choice sets attributes as well as with designs having five alternatives second we investigate the impact of the design dimensions on stated choices by estimating a multinomial logit model and heteroskedastic logit models results show that the error term variance is influenced by socio demographic characteristics as well as by all design dimensions moreover we find that accounting for the impact of the design dimension on the error variance does not significantly change willingness to pay estimates

the environmental kuznets curve ekc and the environmental problem of the day this study evaluates the relevancy of the environment kuznets curve ekc hypothesis to the environment problem of the world to achieve this objective different aspects of the ekc have been critically reviewed the study concludes that ekc growth strategy grow now clean later is too much resource intensive and has huge environmental cost that this planet may not be able to absorb in future the key recommendations of the study are that developing countries should follow different growth path than that of the ekc the growth path that must be sustainable and less destructive since energy is the most important determinant of the pollution therefore the governments should frame a special policy for renewable energy by taxing the fossil and subsidizing the renewables

the effect of within season variability on estimates of recreational value for trout anglers in new zealand abstract recreational benefit estimates can be substantially improved by incorporation of data on attributes that are averaged over shorter periods of time so as to better represent within season variability this approach may be advantageous across a wide range of non market valuation settings we use angling survey data that includes bimonthly data on angler demand water quality and fish weight in the rotorua lakes and compare our results with those obtained using attribute data averaged over the year estimates of marginal willingness to pay for catching fish based on annual data are 5 times higher than those based on bimonthly data likewise the estimated welfare gain from a 1 m increase in water clarity is 1 5 times higher in models using annual data we find that within season variability in recreational site attributes can have a statistically significant effect on welfare estimates the effect of seasonal variation in site attributes has rarely been accounted for in travel cost random utility models of recreation we conclude that appropriate treatment of temporal variability can assist environmental managers to design more cost effective policies based on improved estimates of welfare gains

joint estimation of multiple cvm scenarios under a double bounded questioning format contingent valuation surveys frequently ask the same respondent for willingness to pay wtp for either different programs or different levels of provision of a single program when multiple scenarios are considered by the respondent the errors in the estimates of wtp are likely to be correlated across scenarios failing to account for correlation may lead to erroneous inferences concerning differences in wtp this paper presents a technique that can be used to jointly estimate wtp for multiple scenarios proposed within a survey when the double bounded questioning format is used monte carlo simulations are employed to show that estimates derived from the joint model provide lower parameter variances as well as tighter confidence intervals surrounding wtp the model is used to estimate wtp values for data collected in telephone interviews of california residents concerning wtp for fire reduction programs in oregon and california variance properties of these estimates are shown to be similar to those estimated using simulated data

preferences for pesticide regulation i look at consumer preferences for pesticide regulation the analysis is based on a random telephone survey of households there is a distinct preference for pesticide regulation over an alternative risk reduction proposal auto exhaust regulation when both regulations are hypothesized to cost the same and save the same number of lives such preference has a surprisingly broad demographic base however when the potential numbers of lives saved are different under the two programs almost 71 of the subjects preferred the regulation that saved the most lives regardless of the risk source

environmental pricing of externalities from different sources of electricity generation in chile abstract the rapid increase in electricity demand in chile means a choice must be made between major investments in renewable or non renewable sources for additional production current projects to develop large dams for hydropower in chilean patagonia impose an environmental price by damaging the natural environment on the other hand the increased use of fossil fuels entails an environmental price in terms of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change this paper studies the debate on future electricity supply in chile by investigating the preferences of households for a variety of different sources of electricity generation such as fossil fuels large hydropower in chilean patagonia and other renewable energy sources using double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation a novel advanced disclosure method and internal consistency test are used to elicit the willingness to pay for less environmentally damaging sources policy results suggest a strong preference for renewable energy sources with higher environmental prices imposed by consumers on electricity generated from fossil fuels than from large dams in chilean patagonia policy results further suggest the possibility of introducing incentives for renewable energy developments that would be supported by consumers through green tariffs or environmental premiums methodological findings suggest that advanced disclosure learning overcomes the problem of internal inconsistency in sb db estimates

thailand green gdp assessment based on environmentally extended input output model abstract green gdp is an indicator of economic growth with the environmental impact on that growth factored into the traditional gdp this study aims to develop a green gdp model for thailand using the eio lca method green gdp is calculated by subtracting environmental costs from the traditional gdp environmental cost can be further divided into three components based on the system of environmental economic accounting seea which include depletion cost degradation cost and defensive cost life cycle assessment is a tool for evaluating the environmental impact which in this study focuses on ghg emissions the total direct ghg emissions for thailand are calculated for 1990 2020 based on the 2006 ipcc guidelines and thailand public statistical data for each economic sector it was found that the amount of ghg emissions are 242 459 million tonnes co2eq yr which come from 10 economic sectors comprised of agriculture mining manufacturing petroleum refinery power generation gas separation construction commercial residential and transportation more than 80 of the total direct emissions come from four sectors manufacturing 28 power generation 26 transportation 16 and agriculture 15 the portion of total ghg emissions direct and indirect emissions contributions is different from direct ghg emissions because the proportion of emissions from upstream processes in each sector is different the portion of total ghg emissions of manufacturing agriculture transportation and residential are 60 22 13 and 5 respectively the total thailand green gdp is consolidated from the results of each sector s green gdp the difference between thailand s gdp and green gdp is about 2 due to the degradation cost of ghg emissions with variability in the ratio of gdp to green gdp across different sectors the forecast of green gdp by sector for 2015 2020 can be used as business as usual bau scenarios to support policy making as well as the nama and indc action plan for thailand

changes in the value relevance of earnings and book values over the past forty years this paper investigates systematic changes in the value relevance of earnings and book values over time we report three primary findings first contrary to claims in the professional literature the combined value relevance of earnings and book values has not declined over the past forty years and in fact appears to have increased slightly second while the incremental value relevance of bottom line earnings has declined it has been replaced by increasing value relevance of book values finally much of the shift in value relevance fiom earnings to book values can be explained by the increasing frequency and magnitude of one time items the increasing frequency of negative earnings and changes in average firm size and intangible intensity across time

assessing the green economy in china an improved framework abstract theses on china s low carbon economy focus on the driving forces of carbon emissions energy carbon efficiency and the carbon economy nexus meanwhile comprehensive frameworks that assess china s green economy and also analyze its driving forces are lacking this paper constructs a green productivity index based on the global malmquist luenberger productivity index to evaluate the development of the low carbon economy in china a panel vector auto regression model is adopted to further analyze the endogenous interactions and dynamic relationships among aspects of the green economy and its influencing factors empirical results show that china has seen a balanced development of green economic growth in 2000 2016 achieved in a series of clear stages to maintain the sustainable growth of the low carbon economy in the future china must rely more on technological progress this research also makes some important discoveries that have not been found in previous studies the impact of china s industrial structure and energy consumption structure on the green economy are short term having a duration of impact of approximately four years finally we provide an assessment of provincial green economy development and describe the corresponding policy implications

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

management ownership and market valuation an empirical analysis we investigate the relationship between management ownership and market valuation of the firm as measured by tobin s q in a 1980 cross section of 371 fortune 500 firms we find evidence of a significant nonmonotonic relationship tobin s q first increases then declines and finally rises slightly as ownership by the board of directors rises for older firms there is evidence that q is lower when the firm is run by a member of the founding family than when it is run by an officer unrelated to the founder

study on benefit transfer in an international setting how to improve welfare estimates in the case of the countries income heterogeneity abstract the paper aims at investigating the validity of benefit transfer in the case of transfers between countries highly heterogeneous in income and demonstrates relative performance of different benefit transfer methods under these conditions lake water quality valuation studies were conducted in two countries in transition poland and the czech republic they reflected two earlier studies carried out in norway we examine how income elasticity of wtp varies with the levels of income and find support for applying the income elasticity of 1 to adjust transferred welfare estimates in case of high differences in income between countries in addition we show that using site specific measures of income outperforms transfers based on gpd per capita the accuracy of benefit transfer is compared using equivalence testing following the tosc two one sided convolutions test a new more informative way of reporting equivalence is proposed based on computing minimum tolerance level rather than specifying it a priori

the market reaction to international cross listings evidence from depositary receipts abstract this paper examines the stock price impact of international dual listings the sample consists of 181 firms from 35 countries that instituted their first depositary receipt program over the period 1985 1995 the market reaction to a depositary receipt program is larger in magnitude and more pervasive than previously reported the stock price reaction is related to choice of exchange geographical location i e emerging or developed markets and avenues for raising equity capital i e public versus private offerings

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

elicitation format and sensitivity to scope this paper undertakes a systematiccomparison of the contingent valuation cv andchoice experiments ce methods andinvestigates the extent to which either of themare affected by insensitivity to scope this isachieved by undertaking separate cv estimatesof willingness to pay for two nested publicgoods both of which are explicitly included ina parallel ce survey the results indicate thatce values exhibit greater sensitivity to scopethan cv values ce gives significantly largerresults than cv for the more inclusive publicgood and significantly smaller results for theless inclusive public good

agency relationships in family firms theory and evidence does owner management necessarily eliminate the agency costs of ownership drawing on agency literature and on the economic theory of the household we argue that private ownership and owner management expose privately held owner managed firms to agency threats ignored by jensen s and meckling s 1976 agency model private ownership and owner management not only reduce the effectiveness of external control mechanisms they also expose firms to a self control problem created by incentives that cause owners to take actions which harm themselves as well as those around them jensen 1994 p 43 thus shareholders have incentive to invest resources in curbing both managerialand owner opportunism we extend this thesis to the domain of the family firm after developing hypotheses which describe how family dynamics and specifically altruism exacerbate agency problems experienced by these privately held owner managed firms we use data obtained from a large scale survey of family businesses to field test our hypotheses and find evidence which suggests support for our proposed theory finally we discuss the implications of our theory for research on family and other types of privately held owner managed firms

can foreign firms bond themselves effectively by renting u s securities laws abstract the study tests the functional convergence hypothesis which states that foreign firms can leapfrog their countries weak legal institutions by listing equities in new york and agreeing to follow u s securities law evidence shows that the sec and minority shareholders have not effectively enforced the law against cross listed foreign firms detailed evidence from mexico further shows that while some insiders exploited this weak legal enforcement with impunity others that issued a cross listing and passed through an economic downturn with a clean reputation went on to receive privileged long term access to outside finance as compared with legal bonding reputational bonding better explains the success of cross listings

regional green development level and its spatial relationship under the constraints of haze in china abstract this paper includes the new constraints of haze in the environmental efficiency research framework and the sbm undesirable and malmquist exponential models are used to measure and analyse the evolution characteristics and regional differences of regional green environmental efficiency of china and applied china s regional panel data and a spatial dubin model to deeply explore the impact of environmental regulation openness urbanisation industrial structure and technological innovation on regional green environmental efficiency the result show that under the constraints of smog the regional green environment efficiency of china is different with each area and shows strong spatial dependence and spatial differentiation the overall spatial distribution of the east middle northeast west gradient is decreasing environmental regulation had a major impact on the green environment efficiency of the region and demonstrated an inverted n type relationship the degree of openness urbanisation industrial structure and technological innovation play an active role in promoting regional green sustainable development economic growth corporate ownership structure fiscal policy and foreign investment dependence have hindered the progress of regional green sustainable development to a certain extent

substitution effects in the valuation of multiple environmental programs abstract a theoretical framework for understanding substitution and complementary effects between environmental programs is derived a multiple program valuation function is specified and its structure analyzed a maximum likelihood estimator is derived to estimate the parameters of the valuation function using referendum type contingent valuation data the empirical analysis shows that the conventional benefit aggregation approach of independent valuation and summation overstates the benefits of two and three program policies by an average of 24 and 54 respectively

the effect of industrial agglomeration on green development efficiency in northeast china since the revitalization abstract using panel data from 2003 to 2016 this paper estimates the green development efficiency of 34 cities in northeast china based on the sbm dea model and determines whether industrial agglomeration promotes or impedes green development efficiency the results show the following 1 the average green development efficiency of northeast china exhibits a fluctuant upward trend in 2003 2016 and there are significant spatial differences 2 during the revitalization period industrial agglomeration hinders green development efficiency a u shaped relationship exists between industrial agglomeration and green development 3 economic development level and foreign direct investment are positively related to green development efficiency while industrial structure energy consumption structure and environmental regulation are negatively related economic development level has the greatest positive influence and environmental regulation the strongest negative influence on green development several corresponding policy implications are proposed for promoting green development and revitalization

efficiency evaluation of china s provincial power systems based on the dynamic network slacks based measure model abstract a power system contains generation transmission and distribution divisions policy reforms and management mechanisms may affect the environmental efficiency of certain divisions or the integrated power system this study applied the dynamic network slacks based measure dnsbm model to analyze the environmental efficiency of both the power systems and their divisions of provincial administrative areas in china and investigated the effects of the external environmental factors it employed scenario analysis to further explore the feasibility of separating the distribution from the transmission division the results indicate that 1 the dnsbm model takes the internal structure of the power system into account and provides a new perspective to seek the sources of the system and division efficiencies 2 customer density and energy consumption intensity have significant impacts on the system and division efficiencies while the power generation structure only affects the environmental efficiency of the generation division 3 the scenario analysis shows that the policy of separating power plants from grids improved the system efficiency to which the improvement in generation division is the main contributor and separating distribution from transmission may have great potential for enhancing the efficiencies of power systems

a multiscale reassessment of the environmental kuznets curve for energy and co2 emissions abstract this paper investigates the environmental kuznets curve hypothesis for total primary energy supply and co2 from fuel combustion over the period 1971 2015 our analysis has two distinguishing features firstly it adopts a robustness approach by a using both parametric and semi parametric methods and b analysing different geographical scales secondly it strictly adheres to the ekc narrative by a not using control variables and b taking energy and co2 in absolute rather than in per capita terms which is consistent with the fact that nature cares about absolute pressures we show how evidence for ekc changes depending on the model specification the sample and the used variables hence this paper contributes to explaining why the literature on the ekc gives mixed results the multiscale perspective and some theoretical considerations however tell how to perform the analysis appropriately thus we can affirm that both for co2 and energy the fragile evidence of ekc that was emerging at the end of the last century has vanished with the new wave of globalization there is only evidence of decreasing elasticities for very high income countries interestingly the great recession might have produced structural reductions in tpes and co2 in the affected countries finally the case of germany which shows ekc patterns indicates that active energy policies can reduce energy and co2 without harming the economy

measuring the difference in mean willingness to pay when dichotomous choice contingent valuation responses are not independent dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys frequently elicit multiple values in a single questionnaire if individual responses are correlated across scenarios the standard approach of estimating willingness to pay wtp functions independently for each scenario may result in biased estimates of the significance of the difference in mean wtp values this paper applies an alternative bivariate probit approach that explicitly accounts for correlation across errors in the estimation of wtp and mean wtp using data from three separate dichotomous choice contingent valuation studies this correlation is demonstrated to have an effect on the significance level of mean wtp difference tests

towards a green economy through innovations the role of trade union involvement abstract in this paper we address the overlooked issue of whether and how industrial relations might play a role in the process of greening the economy primarily through the levers of innovation adoption and organisational change we address our objective econometrically assessing the quality of industrial relations as a driver of environmental innovation adoption through the use of micro data on manufacturing firms the results yield two interesting main findings being a unionised firm is not associated with the adoption of environmental innovation however when we consider the industrial relations climate we observe a positive relationship between a cooperative industrial relations climate union involvement and the propensity to introduce environmental innovation two models are relevant a managerially oriented model unions are informed and a participatory model unions bargain on innovation adoption the contents of environmental innovations are also important union involvement is more relevant for adopting more complex and radical innovations to abate co2 and ems and iso practices

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

combining contingent valuation and choice experiments a forestry application in spain when many good variants are to be valued like in several forest management programs which differ in the attribute levels the contingent valuation method may not be a practical option given the cost and time involved to value each variant separately there are at least three alternative procedures in such situations one i is to apply an attribute based valuation method like a choice experiment ce another ii is to conduct a cvm and a ce exercise and estimate a joint model a third one iii is to use the cvm estimates to value a base scenario and then use the ce results to adjust the cvm estimates for any new different scenario a numerical simulation and an empirical application to an afforestation program in spain show that the latter is the procedure that yields closer values to the cvm estimations followed by ii

toward a new conception of the environment competitiveness relationship accepting a fixed trade off between environmental regulation and competitiveness unnecessarily raises costs and slows down environmental progress studies finding high environmental compliance costs have traditionally focused on static cost impacts ignoring any offsetting productivity benefits from innovation they typically overestimated compliance costs neglected innovation offsets and disregarded the affected industry s initial competitiveness rather than simply adding to cost properly crafted environmental standards can trigger innovation offsets allowing companies to improve their resource productivity shifting the debate from pollution control to pollution prevention was a step forward it is now necessary to make the next step and focus on resource productivity

internationalization and the evolution of corporate valuation by documenting the evolution of tobin s q before during and after firms internationalize the authors provide evidence on the bonding segmentation and market timing theories of internationalization using new data on 9 096 firms across 74 countries over the period 1989 2000 they find that tobin s q does not rise after internationalization even relative to firms that do not internationalize instead q rises significantly before internationalization and during the internationalization year but then q falls sharply in the year after internationalization quickly relinquishing the increases of the previous years to account for these dynamics the authors show that market capitalization rises before internationalization and remains high while corporate assets increase during internationalization the evidence supports models stressing that financial internationalization facilitates corporate expansion but challenges models stressing that internationalization produces an enduring effect on q by bonding firms to a better corporate governance system

undesirable outputs in efficiency valuations abstract efficiency measurement is usually based on the assumption that inputs have to be minimized and outputs have to be maximized in a growing number of applications however undesirable outputs are incorporated into the production model which have to be minimized in this paper various approaches for treating such outputs in the framework of data envelopment analysis dea are discussed and the resulting efficient frontiers are compared new radial measures are introduced which assume that any change of the output level will involve both undesirable and desirable outputs

willingness to pay for ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation assessing the willingness to pay wtp of the general public for climate change mitigation programmes enables governments to understand how much taxpayers are willing to support the implementation of such programs this paper contributes to the literature on the wtp for climate change mitigation programmes by investigating in addition to global benefits the ancillary benefits of climate change mitigation it does so by considering local and personal benefits arising from climate change policies the contingent valuation method is used to elicit the wtp for ancillary and global benefits of climate mitigation policies in the basque country spain results show that wtp estimates are 53 73 higher when ancillary benefits are considered

strength of preference indicators and an ordered response model for ordinarily dichotomous discrete choice data abstract recent environmental regulations raise the importance of accurate survey based methods to estimate environmental values while interviewing costs stimulate research to improve dichotomous choice survey methods this paper proposes using strength of preference indicators along with dichotomous contingent response data we model strength of preference indicators as quasi cardinal measures using an ordered response model we find that strength of preference indicators provide substantial efficiency gains while increasing respondents effort minimally with evidence that interpersonal comparison of preference ratings induces no bias the ordered response model of utility and willingness to pay is superior even in predicting the binary choice results

choice modeling and tests of benefit transfer choice modelling cm is a stated preference technique that is increasingly being used to generate estimates of non market values in cm applications respondents to a survey are presented with several sets of options which contain common attributes but at varying levels and are asked to select their preferred alternative from each set the information provided by respondents choices is used to estimate marginal rates of substitution and hence estimates of value in this paper the results from three separate cm applications are presented estimates are made of the value of improving the quality of wetlands the first two applications focused on the gwydir wetlands in new south wales australia one survey was conducted in sydney a major urban centre and the second was conducted in moree a rural centre close to the gwydir wetlands the third survey which was also conducted in sydney focused on the macquarie marshes another wetland in new south wales an objective of the study was to test the suitability of using cm derived estimates for benefit transfer both across different populations and across different wetlands cm is potentially suited to benefit transfer because it is possible to allow for differences in environmental improvements between sites as well as differences in socio economic characteristics between respondent populations several tests aimed at determining the validity of transfers using cm across sites and populations are presented these include tests of the equality of models implicit prices and estimates of compensating surplus

environmental valuation with periodical payments in high inflation economies an argentinean case study abstract stated preference valuation surveys often ask respondents for periodical payments sometimes for the remaining life of the individuals questionnaires do not usually specify whether those payments would vary according to inflation this may be less important in low inflation economies but results could differ significantly in high inflation countries a contingent choice exercise was conducted to explore the severity of this effect in argentina the empirical application focused on an anthropogenic pressure mitigation program for the basins of the mendoza region a comparison of willingness to pay results from a scenario where annual payments were to be increased according to inflation with another of fixed annuities found inflation to be significantly influential on respondents stated values furthermore a test on the robustness of the estimated values found results to be consistent with prior expectations

managerial ownership of voting rights abstract managers of firms with dual classes of common stock can choose different quantities of votes for a given cash flow interest by choosing different quantities of the two securities we study managerial stock holdings in 45 dual class firms and find that vote ownership per se is an important motivation for these holdings in that corporate officers and their families hold a median 56 9 of the votes and 24 0 of the common stock cash flows we also find significant family involvement in many sample firms and document four case studies in which explicit acquisition premiums were paid for superior voting shares

attribute causality in environmental choice modelling when selecting attributes in environmentalchoice modelling studies preference should begiven to those attributes that aredemand relevant policy relevant andmeasurable the use of these criteria willoften result in a short list of environmentalattributes of which some are causally related the inclusion of attributes that have a cause effect relationship may stimulate somerespondents to seek to understand the causalrelations among attributes in order to assigngreater meaning to the alternatives andpotentially simplify the decision makingprocess this may have implications for theweights they assign to each of the attributeswhen identifying the preferred alternatives and subsequently for the implicit prices and orwelfare estimates a test of the impact ofincluding an attribute that causesimpacts on ecosystem health as well as anattribute relating to ecosystem health effectson parameter estimates implicitprices and welfare estimates is conducted twoquestionnaires are developed one with the causal attribute included and one without acomparison of results indicates that when the causal attribute is included in the vector ofchoice attributes the implicit value of asingle endangered species falls by 34 per centwhilst no significant difference is detected inthe parameter estimates importantly however estimates of compensating surplus for a givenpolicy package do not differsignificantly across the two treatments thisimplies that to the extent that the inclusionof a causal attribute reduces the implicitprices for one or more of the effect attributes the associated loss in utility isapproximately offset by the utility nowassociated with the new attribute

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

has new york become less competitive than london in global markets evaluating foreign listing choices over time abstract we study the determinants and consequences of cross listings on the new york and london stock exchanges from 1990 to 2005 this investigation enables us to evaluate the relative benefits of new york and london exchange listings and to assess whether these relative benefits have changed over time perhaps as a result of the passage of the sarbanes oxley act in 2002 we find that cross listings have been falling on us exchanges as well as on the main market in london this decline in cross listings is explained by changes in firm characteristics instead of by changes in the benefits of cross listing we show that after controlling for firm characteristics there is no deficit in cross listing counts on us exchanges related to sox investigating the valuation differential between listed and non listed firms the cross listing premium from 1990 to 2005 we find that there is a significant premium for us exchange listings every year that the premium has not fallen significantly in recent years and that it persists when allowing for time invariant unobservable firm characteristics in contrast no premium exists for listings on london s main market in any year firms increase their capital raising activities at home and abroad following a cross listing on a major us exchange but not following a cross listing in london our evidence is consistent with the theory that an exchange listing in new york has unique governance benefits for foreign firms

towards connecting green economy with informal economy in south africa a review and way forward the informal economy is a vibrant and growing phenomenon offering both opportunities and lessons on resilience and innovation when considering global social economic and environmental challenges resilience and innovation are valuable response strategies the notion of a green economy has similarly inspired a number of ideological geopolitical and institutional responses yet a review of the dominant approach indicates the propensity to undervalue or ignore the informal economy within the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication connecting the informal economy with the green economy is imperative this paper explores possible connections between the green economy and the informal economy in south africa and argues that by engaging the informal economy in discussions on the green economy a more informed policy and planning environment may ensue resulting in more socially equitable and environmentally sustainable development

prospects for the use of choice modelling for benefit transfer abstract many of the earliest studies that sought to test the validity of benefit transfer which typically involved the use of contingent valuation or travel cost applications produced negative findings one of the recommendations from this early testing was to trial alternative methods to produce source studies for benefit transfer including multi attribute techniques subsequently there have been a number of studies conducted that have sought to test the validity of benefit transfer using choice modelling the purpose of this paper is to review these studies and to assess the current state of knowledge regarding the validity of using choice modelling for the purpose of benefit transfer we also describe and consider the merits of an alternative approach for extending the use of choice modelling in benefit transfer bayesian benefit transfer

does environmental regulation drive away inbound foreign direct investment evidence from a quasi natural experiment in china abstract this paper investigates whether environmental regulation affects inbound foreign direct investment the identification uses the two control zones tcz policy implemented by the chinese government in 1998 in which tougher environmental regulations were imposed in tcz cities but not others our difference in difference in differences estimation explores three dimension variations specifically city i e tcz versus non tcz cities industry i e more polluting industries relative to less polluting ones and year i e before and after the tcz policy we find that tougher environmental regulation leads to less foreign direct investment meanwhile we find that foreign multinationals from countries with better environmental protections than china are insensitive to the toughening environmental regulation while those from countries with worse environmental protections than china show strong negative responses

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

analysing the social benefits of soil conservation measures using stated preference methods the paper estimates the benefits of programmes to mitigate the off site impacts of soil erosion for a watershed in andalusia spain two stated preference methods are used namely choice experiments and contingent valuation to obtain estimates of the social benefit from soil erosion reductions under two different methodologies we emphasise the relative merits of the choice experiment method to provide useful inputs to policy design however employing both methods allows us to undertake a convergent validity test and thus to provide more defensible social benefit estimates the attributes used in the choice experiment include water quality impacts which we find to have the highest marginal values impacts on wildlife and the area subject to a control programme the contingent valuation design includes an attempt to reduce bias by reminding respondents about substitutes results are used to suggest upper limits on per hectare payments for soil conservation programmes

an analysis of the stock price reaction to sudden executive deaths implications for the managerial labor market abstract certain characteristics of managerial employment arrangements and of the managerial labor market make shareholder wealth dependent on an executive s continued employment these wealth effects are investigated by examining the common stock price reaction to unexpected deaths of senior corporate executives abnormal stock price changes are documented for a sample of fifty three events these abnormal stock price changes are associated with the executive s status as a corporate founder and with measures of the executive s talents and decision making responsibility and of the transaction costs associated with renegotiating or terminating the employment agreement

the effects of market segmentation and investor recognition on asset prices evidence from foreign stocks listing in the united states non u s firms cross listing shares on u s exchanges as american depositary receipts earn cumulative abnormal returns of 19 percent during the year before listing and an additional 1 20 percent during the listing week but incur a loss of 14 percent during the year following listing we show how these unusual share price changes are robust to changing market risk exposures and are related to an expansion of the shareholder base and to the amount of capital raised at the time of listing our tests provide support for the market segmentation hypothesis and merton s 1987 investor recognition hypothesis the globalization of u s capital markets has accelerated dramatically in the past decade increasing numbers of companies from overseas have chosen to either raise capital through global equity issues or prepare for future capital raising by way of cross listings on u s exchanges as of 1997 about 1 300 non u s companies have listed their shares for trading on the new york stock exchange nyse the american exchange amex the national association of securities dealers automation quotation nasdaq system or

corporate performance and managerial remuneration an empirical analysis abstract economic theories of efficient compensation predict a positive relationship between executive pay and corporate performance and yet efforts to document this relationship have been largely unsuccessful in this paper we argue that previous cross sectional studies have omitted important variables which seriously bias their results using data that focus on individual executives over time we find that executive compensation is strongly positively related to corporate performance as measured by shareholder return and growth in firm sales the results are robust to the stock market performance measure utilized

does the bonding effect matter in a more integrated capital market world abstract this paper examines the bonding effect of cross listing before and after the stock market liberalization reforms in china consistent with the bonding hypothesis we find that chinese firms with foreign listings attain higher valuations than firms without foreign listings we also find that they manage earnings less than comparable purely domestic listed firms and have more informative stock prices further investigation indicates that the divergence in earnings quality between cross listed and non cross listed firms shrinks dramatically after the chinese stock market liberalization reforms in 2001 and 2002 overall the results suggest that the bonding effect is mitigated in an increasingly integrated capital market world

a test of policy labels in environmental choice modelling studies abstract a question that arises in the application of environmental choice modelling cm studies is whether to present the choice sets in a generic or labelled form the former involves labelling the policy options to be presented to respondents in a generic way for example as option a option b etc the labelled approach assigns alternative specific descriptors to each option these may relate to the names of proposed policies different locations or any other policy relevant details both approaches have their advantages a potential advantage of using alternative specific labels is that respondents may be better able to base their choices on the true policy context this can increase predictive validity whilst at the same time reducing the cognitive burden of the cm exercise a potential advantage of the generic labelling approach is that respondents may be less inclined to base their choices wholly or largely on the labels and as a consequence may provide better information regarding trade offs among attributes the two approaches to choice set design are compared in the context of a cm study of the values of remnant vegetation in the desert uplands of central queensland results indicate a difference in the cognitive processes generated by choice models using the different approaches this difference is reflected in both the alternative specific constants and the taste parameters and cannot be accounted for by differences in error variance across the two treatments the implications for environmental valuation are discussed

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

the structure of ownership and the theory of the firm the separation of ownership from control produces a condition where the interests of owner and of ultimate manager may and often do diverge and where many of the checks which formerly operated to limit the use of power disappear in creating these new relationships the quasi public corporation may fairly be said to work a revolution it has divided ownership into nominal ownership and the power formerly joined to it thereby the corporation has changed the nature of profit seeking enterprise 1

relative valuation roles of equity book value and net income as a function of financial health abstract this study tests predictions that pricing multiples on and incremental explanatory power of equity book value net income increase decrease as financial health decreases tests using a sample of 396 bankrupt firms and tests using a larger pooled sample both yield inferences consistent with predictions findings are robust to inclusion of controls for industry size return on equity and volatility of equity returns equity book value and net income multiples and incremental explanatory power vary predictably across three illustrative industries selected based on the likely extent of unrecognized intangible assets

bias in discrete response contingent valuation abstract the empirical literature on discrete response contingent valuation has found that seemingly innocuous changes in the statistical models estimated result in significantly different point estimates of willingness to pay this paper hypothesizes and tests several potential explanations for these results first it investigates and compares the biases inherent in single bounded and double bounded maximum likelihood estimation procedures and examines how they react to various bid designs and sample sizes then it examines the presence and identification of outliers in binary choice data and how these outliers influence estimation finally it presents an alternative approach to addressing the issue of outliers which explicitly acknowledges the possibility of upwardly biased response probabilities

have financial statements lost their relevance the authors explore the concern that financial statements no longer have the same relevance to investors that they had in the past they test for value relevance by measuring the total return that could have been earned from prior knowledge of financial statement information and by examining the explanatory power of accounting information on market values and annual market adjusted returns both analyses are applied to a broad sample of exchange listed and nasdaq firms for the 1952 94 period the authors find mixed evidence on value relevance of financial statement reporting during the test period

the role of question order and respondent experience in contingent valuation studies abstract grand canyon white water boating was used to address issues in contingent valuation of question ordering and respondent experience question ordering effects were not identified for experienced boaters but did occur in some estimates for less experienced boaters an experience effect is further suggested if respondents value their actual white water trips differently than written scenarios of trips no effect was identified for experienced boaters but a significant difference did occur for less experienced boaters significant differences for less experienced boaters suggest that respondent experience may play a role in value formation resulting in survey instrument effects in valuation estimates

rural amenity values and length of residency new residents of rural communities are often assumed to have preferences for development and conservation that differ from those of longer term residents however the literature offers little to quantify presumed preference heterogeneity this article assesses whether stated preferences differ according to length of residency results are based on a conjoint choice experiment survey of rhode island rural residents heterogeneity according to length of town residency is modeled using dummy variables multiplicative interactions and lagrangian interpolation polynomials results are compared across the three models and identify a range of attributes for which willingness to pay depends on length of residency