role of renewable energy on industrial output in canada abstract several scholars have highlighted the idea that energy consumption in general and consumption of renewable energy re in particular may be a potential driver of economic growth in this paper we examine the relationship between re production and economic activity in canada between may 1966 and december 2015 by applying quantile causality troster 2018 we adopt a nonlinear approach considering all quantiles of the distribution and analysing monthly data consisting of re production and the canadian industrial production index ipi we find evidence of a nonlinear relationship in canada an important result that widely used linear models fail to capture our main findings imply a unidirectional relationship going from the ipi to re production which supports the conservation hypothesis the directionality between re and economic growth is sensitive to the market conditions in canada

temporal stability of stated preferences for endangered species protection from choice experiments abstract benefit transfer methods rely on past models and results so it is important to know whether economic values are stable over time or are subject to change either because of the reliability of the methodology or due to actual preference changes the temporal stability of willingness to pay wtp has been tested extensively for contingent valuation but rarely for stated preference choice experiments ce we use data from two identical ce surveys on different samples from the same population that occurred 17 months apart spring 2009 and fall 2010 to estimate and compare mean wtp and preference parameters associated with threatened and endangered marine species protection our models account for both preference and scale heterogeneity and the results suggest both types of heterogeneity matter tests of preference stability suggest stable preferences between 2009 and 2010 furthermore wtp values estimated from both surveys are not statistically different this provides evidence that economic values estimated using ce methods are temporally stable

do contingent valuation estimates pass a scope test a meta analysis abstract this paper considers the scope test proposed to judge the internal consistency of contingent valuation estimates the test is shown to be quite sensitive to the maintained hypotheses required to derive fairly precise expectations for the properties of wtp functions and therefore a different approach may be needed in gauging the reliability of cv this paper describes an approach that relies on a weight of the evidence criterion and uses meta analysis to develop a systematic appraisal of what the economic values of changes in amenity resources are the approach is illustrated for the case of estimating people s willingness to pay for improving or maintaining visibility at the national parks

disentangling the pure time effect from site and preference heterogeneity effects in benefit transfer an empirical investigation of transferability two identical open ended contingent valuation surveys assessing willingness to pay for better protection against flooding were administered in 2005 and 2010 at the same site the 2010 survey was administered to the same respondents as those interviewed in 2005 as well as to new participants this experimental design allows us to separate the pure temporal dimension from the spatial and social dimensions of transferability thereby permitting an investigation of the temporal reliability associated with a transfer of value estimates over a 5 year time horizon having isolated the pure effect of time the design further allows assessing the social dimension of transferability

the economic power of energy and the need to integrate it with energy policy abstract drastic oil price changes the associated economic perturbations the coupling of energy conversion to entropy production in the form of emissions and the problems of climate change call for a reappraisal of energy in economic theory we review econometric growth analyses that do not weigh the production factors capital labor and energy by their cost shares their reproduction of economic growth in germany japan and the usa during the second half of 20th century is good according to these analyses energy s output elasticity which measures its economic power is much larger than energy s share in total factor cost while for labor s output elasticity and cost share the opposite is true this is consistent with profit and welfare optimization if hitherto ignored technological constraints are taken into account computing the motion of the german industrial sector in its cost mountain employing empirical data on factor quantities and prices supports these results the pivotal role of energy in economic growth provides leverage to energy policies that care about social well being and climate stability

choice consistency and preference stability in test retests of discrete choice experiment and open ended willingness to pay elicitation formats this study tests the temporal stability of preferences choices and willingness to pay wtp values using both discrete choice experiment dce and open ended oe wtp elicitation formats the same sample is surveyed three times over the course of two years using each time the same choice sets choice consistency is positively correlated with choice certainty and choice complexity the impact of choice complexity fades away in time most likely as a result of learning and preference refinement although the oe wtp values remain stable over a time period of 2 years as in previous stated preference studies dce based wtp measures differ significantly suggesting their use in benefits transfer may be limited

as time goes by examination of temporal stability across stated preference question formats we evaluate the temporal stability of willingness to pay values obtained from two identical stated preference surveys undertaken in 2004 and 2012 the surveys employ two discrete choice elicitation formats to value reductions in two health endpoints related to tap water consumption and are explicitly designed to make direct comparisons between formats we find no significant differences in real willingness to pay between the two surveys for either format a result that is robust to the structure of heterogeneity used to model respondent preferences findings lend support at least within the context of tap water quality to the temporal transfer of nonmarket benefits over extended time periods

evaluating the performance of benefit transfer an empirical inquiry abstract benefit transfers are used by public agencies needing information on costs and benefits of policy decisions although scientific debate regarding the validity of benefit transfer is ongoing this article develops a methodology to evaluate the performance of direct benefit transfer and benefit function transfer and applies the methodology to two pairs of similar non market amenities empirical results indicate that benefit function transfer is more robust than transfer of average site benefits our results suggest that the circumstances under which benefit function transfer provides valid policy relevant information may be limited and that errors from applying benefit transfer can be quite large even across seemingly similar amenities

a general theory of controllability and expectations anchoring for small open economies abstract rational expectations are often used as an argument against policy activism as they may undermine or neutralize the policymaker s actions although this sometimes happens rational expectations do not always imply policy invariance or ineffectiveness in fact in certain circumstances rational expectations can enhance our power to control an economy over time in those cases policy announcements can be used to extend the impact of conventional policy instruments we present a general forward looking policy framework and use it to provide a formal rationale for testing when policymakers can and cannot expect to be able to manage expectations to describe the relevance of our results applications are shown for policy design in small open economies those are the cases where domestic policies are at their weakest and our ability to influence expectations most constrained

economic valuation of the influence of invasive alien species on the economy of the seychelles islands abstract biodiversity underpins most economic activities in seychelles and loss of biodiversity as a result of invasive alien species ias could result in major negative economic impacts for the country this paper assesses the value of impacts of ias on biodiversity natural resources and the national economy using the principles of total economic value tev the contingent valuation method was used to obtain a willingness to pay wtp estimate for a policy to protect important biodiversity from ias tourists indicated a mean wtp of us 52 us 58 on top of their usual expenditures to fund conservation policy at present approximately us 0 25 million per year is spent on ias control while the economic damage associated with 4 key ias is approximately us 21 million per year comparing the benefits from eradication with the costs involved gives a benefit cost ratio greater than unity indicating that the policy of eradicating ias is economically justified however there is a long way to go before the resources devoted to the problem will be in proportion to the risks

preference stability and choice consistency in discrete choice experiments we investigate preference stability and respondents levels of choice consistency within discrete choice experiments these are investigated via a discrete choice experiment featuring four information treatments and a retest survey completed 6 months after the first three information treatments concern a novel stem cell food technology with the fourth information treatment featuring a non novel technology we find stable welfare estimates over the three information treatments the use of emotive keywords does not systematically change wtp to avoid the stem cell food technology we find a significant wtp to avoid the non novel technology we find high levels of intertemporal preference stability and choice consistency the determinants of choice consistency are examined two factors are significant a measure of the choice task s complexity entropy and a novel measure of respondents cognitive capability derived within the survey we find a significant selection issue not previously identified in discrete choice experiment test retest studies with those opting to take the retest exhibiting greater choice consistency in the initial survey this suggests that studies which report high levels of test retest choice consistency without accounting for the selection issue are overstating population choice consistency

benefits transfer of willingness to pay estimates and functions for health risk reductions a cross country study this paper provides a first application of the techniques of benefits transfer to the health economics literature these techniques seek to transfer the value of some good from one survey context to a new policy context so avoiding the need for new valuation surveys each time a new policy question arises two approaches to benefits transfer are assessed the simple transfer of mean values and the transferral of value functions we develop a new methodology for the latter approach in which value functions are iteratively built up from theoretical principles with transfer errors being tested each time a new variable is added through a novel application of advanced statistical tests we show that this approach outperforms the transferral of statistically driven best fit functions the case study presented focuses upon the transfer of contingent valuation cv willingness to pay wtp estimates and associated value functions for reducing the health risks associated with solar ultraviolet uv exposure common format studies are conducted in four countries with transfers between all of these being undertaken by calculating errors in predicted versus actual values across countries we show that when transferring between similar contexts simple mean value transfers outperform more complex value function transfers with the magnitude of the former errors being encouragingly small however this result is reversed when transfers are undertaken across dissimilar contexts where value functions partially adjust for these differences in summary these findings provide support and guidance for future applications

environmental value transfer state of the art and future prospects abstract the main objectives of the paper are to 1 give an overview of the state of the art of environmental value transfer 2 discuss its prospects and potential role in cba as a decision support tool and 3 provide further guidelines for proper use and application environmental value or benefit transfer is a technique in which the results of studies on monetary environmental valuation are applied to new policy contexts the technique is controversial not least because of academic and political reservations over the usefulness and technical feasibility of economic valuation tools to demonstrate the importance of environmental values in project or programme appraisals testing of environmental value transfer so far has been unable to validate the practice taking into account the conditions set out in the literature for valid and reliable value transfer most transfers appear to result in substantial transfer errors this paper discusses why and addresses the question of which factors may have been overlooked it is argued that the problem is much more fundamental than previously acknowledged strict guidelines in terms of quantitative adjustment mechanisms to valid value transfer are meaningless if the more fundamental issue of differences in the very nature of the values elicited is not addressed at the same time

hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth nexus evidence from a panel of ten largest hydroelectricity consumers abstract this paper explores the long run and causal relationships between hydroelectricity consumption and economic growth for a panel of the 10 largest hydroelectricity consuming countries over the period 1965 2012 the countries include brazil canada china france india japan norway sweden turkey and the u s a using the bai and perron 2003 9 tests for cointegration the results indicate that real gdp per capita and hydroelectricity consumption per capita appear to be cointegrated around a broken intercept granger causality results from a nonlinear panel smooth transition vector error correction model suggest different results depending on the regimes which we identified based on structural break tests the test identified three breaks at 1988 2000 and 2009 for the pre 1988 period there is evidence of unidirectional causality running from real gdp per capita to hydroelectricity per capita in both the short and long run over the post 1988 period there exists evidence of bidirectional causality between hydroelectricity energy consumption per capita and real gdp per capita in both the short and the long run the results imply the existence of a feedback hypothesis with both hydroelectricity consumption and growth promoting each other in more recent periods as the importance of hydroelectricity as a renewable energy has become more prominent

the validity of environmental benefits transfer further empirical testing this paper provides further empirical evidence of the validity of environmental benefits transfer based on cv studies by expanding the analysis to include control factors which have not been accounted for in previous studies these factors refer to differences in respondent attitudes traditional population characteristics were taken into account but these variables do not explain why respondents from the same socio economic group may still hold different beliefs norms or values and hence have different attitudes and consequently state different wtp amounts the test results are mixed the function transfer approach is valid in one case but is rejected in the 3 other cases investigated in this paper we provide further evidence that in the case of statistically valid benefits transfer the function approach results in a more robust benefits transfer than the unit value approach we also show that the equality of coefficient estimates is a necessary but insufficient condition for valid benefit function transfer and discuss the implications for previous and future validity testing

stability of willingness to pay for coastal management a choice experiment across three time periods a key assumption of stated preference methods is that individuals have well formed preferences that are robust over time both the discovered and constructed preference perspectives imply this is not necessarily the case there can be a large situational component to expressed preferences that add to the uncertainty of sampling error most non market valuation studies only collect data from one point in time so the degree of temporal variability cannot be tested test retest studies that provide data from two points in time generally find significant differences in preference structure and willingness to pay wtp in this study we test stability of wtp for beach erosion management using a fully ranked discrete choice experiment survey with not one but two retests over a six month period we find that stability does not improve with the additional repetition as the preference discovery hypothesis implies it might wtp confidence intervals overlap but the models are significantly different at each point in time even after allowing for variation in choice error either the survey did not facilitate sufficient preference discovery or preferences were reconstructed however respondents with high scores of self reported certainty in their choices in the first survey had significantly more stable wtp estimates

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

do stated preference methods stand the test of time a test of the stability of contingent values and models for health risks when facing an extreme event abstract this paper focuses on the temporal stability of dichotomous choice dc contingent values and models and the implication of time related aspects for benefits transfer as a viable valuation method from a practical point of view time plays an important role in benefits transfer results are used from studies often carried out years ago and the obvious question is to what extent the estimated values and models stand the test of time in the case of value function transfer this implies testing the robustness of the estimated coefficient estimates over time the novelty of the temporal stability work presented here is that two identical dc contingent valuation cv studies of the health risks associated with bathing water quality were carried out before and during extreme weather conditions causing the closure of bathing locations for public health reasons differences in contingent values and models before and during the extreme event are tested the extreme event causes the seasonal good in question to become temporarily scarcer and marginal wtp is therefore expected to be higher during the extreme event than before but not that underlying preferences have changed hence basically two things are tested the effect of time on stated preferences for a seasonal good and the effect of the extreme event on these preferences wtp values before and during the event appear to be robust also when accounting for substitution effects the results before and during the extreme event remain transferable when accounting for theoretically expected factors in a simple multivariate transfer model however when introducing additional and contextual ad hoc factors in the model the estimated models and their random components become significantly different and hence not transferable suggesting that unobserved preferences may not have been randomly distributed across the two surveys after all

benefit transfer in europe how reliable are transfers between countries the benefits for specific health impacts related to air and water quality were measured in simultaneous contingent valuation surveys conducted in five different european countries consistent inter country differences in willingness to pay to avoid ill health episodes could not be explained by measurable differences in individual characteristics international transfer of unit values resulted in an average transfer error of 38 accounting for measurable differences among countries in health status income and other demographic measures either through ad hoc adjustments to the transferred values or through value function transfer did not improve transfer performance

renewable energy and growth evidence from heterogeneous panel of g7 countries using granger causality abstract in this paper we examine the causal relationship between renewable energy consumption and economic growth across the g7 countries using annual data for the period of 1990 2011 by employing the causality methodology proposed by emirmahmutoglu and kose 2011 8 we investigate if there is a causal relationship between the variables the advantage of this methodology is that it takes into account possible slope heterogeneity and cross sectional dependency in a multivariate panel the empirical results support the existence of a bi directional causal relationship between economic growth and renewable energy for the overall panel however looking at the individual results for each country the neutrality hypothesis is confirmed for canada italy and the us while for france and uk there is a unidirectional causality from gdp to renewable energy and the opposite for germany and japan