statistical efficiency of double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation the statistical efficiency of conventional dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys can be improved by asking each respondent a second dichotomous choice question which depends on the response to the first question if the first response is yes the second bid is some amount greater than the first bid while if the first response is no the second bid is some amount smaller this double bounded approach is shown to be asymptotically more efficient than the conventional singlebounded approach using data from a survey of californians regarding their willingness to pay for wetlands in the san joaquin valley we show that in a finite sample the gain in efficiency can be very substantial

implications of bid design and willingness to pay distribution for starting point bias in double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys we examine starting point bias in double bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation surveys we investigate 1 the seriousness of the biases for the location and scale parameters of the willingness to pay wtp in the presence of starting point bias 2 whether or not these biases depend on the distribution of wtp and on the bid design and 3 how well a commonly used diagnostic for starting point bias a test of the null that bid set dummies entered in the right hand side of the wtp model are jointly equal to zero performs under various circumstances monte carlo simulations suggest that the effect of ignoring starting point bias depends on the bid design and on the true distribution of wtp a well balanced symmetric bid design may result in very modest biases even when the anchoring mechanism is very strong the power of bid set dummies in detecting starting point bias is low they tend to account for misspecifications in the distribution assumed by the researcher for the latent wtp rather than capturing the presence of starting point bias

rethinking the conflict resource curse how oil wealth prevents center seeking civil wars a broad literature on how oil wealth affects civil war onset argues that oil production engenders violent contests to capture a valuable prize from vulnerable governments by contrast research linking oil wealth to durable authoritarian regimes argues that oil rich governments deter societal challenges by strategically allocating enormous revenues to enhance military capacity and to provide patronage this article presents a unified formal model that evaluates how these competing mechanisms affect overall incentives for center seeking civil wars the model yields two key implications first large oil generated revenues strengthen the government and exert an overall effect that decreases center seeking civil war propensity second oil revenues are less effective at preventing center seeking civil war relative to other revenue sources which distinguishes overall and relative effects revised statistical results test overall rather than relative effects by omitting the conventional but posttreatment covariate of income per capita and demonstrate a consistent negative association between oil wealth and center seeking civil war onset

contingent valuation a practical alternative when prices aren t available a person may be willing to make an economic tradeoff to assure that a wilderness area or scenic resource is protected even if neither that person nor perhaps anyone else will actually visit this area this tradeoff is commonly labeled passive use value contingent valuation studies ask questions that help to reveal the monetary tradeoff each person would make concerning the value of goods or services such surveys are a practical alternative approach for eliciting the value of public goods including those with passive use considerations first i discuss the exxon valdez oil spill of march 1989 focusing on why it is important to measure monetary tradeoffs for goods where passive use considerations loom large although discussions of contingent valuation often focus on whether the method is sufficiently reliable for use in assessing natural resource damages in lawsuits it is important to remember that most estimates from contingent valuation studies are used in benefit cost assessments not natural resource damage assessments those working on benefit cost analysis have long recognized that goods and impacts that cannot be quantified are valued implicitly by giving them a limitless value when government regulations preclude certain activities or giving them a value of zero by leaving certain consequences out of the analysis contingent valuation offers a practical alternative for reducing the use of either of these extreme choices i put forward an affirmative case for contingent valuation and address a number of the concerns that have arisen

energy projects in iceland advancing the case for the use of economic valuation techniques to evaluate environmental impacts decision making in iceland has occurred without reference to economic valuations of the environmental impacts of energy projects environmental impact assessments a legal requirement for nearly all energy projects in iceland since 1994 have played an important role in identifying the environmental impacts of energy projects and proposing mitigation measures however a purely qualitative description of environmental impacts is insufficient to ensure that they are accounted for equivalently with all of the other costs and benefits of a proposed project instead as monetary information concerning the welfare gains or losses of proposed projects is not currently required to be provided to the licensing body orkustofnun there is the potential for sub optimal decision making to occur as this paper sets out a broad variety of non market valuation techniques already exist and could be applied to estimate the value of environmental benefits sacrificed to accommodate such developments these methods and their outcomes could be incorporated within mandatory cost benefit assessments for proposed icelandic energy projects communicating an estimate of the full welfare implications of approvals to decision makers and the public alike and fulfilling an oecd demand for the country to commence such processes

the international transmission of eurodollar and us interest rates a cointegration analysis abstract the relationship between us and eurodollar certificate of deposit cd rates for the period 1981 1988 is examined using an error correction model results indicate that there is a structural change in the cd rates in the earlier sub period 1981 1983 there exists unidirectional causality leading from the domestic to the external markets in the more recent sub period 1984 1988 however significant reverse causality is observed these results are likely due to expansion in the size of the eurodollar market and an increase in the volume of eurodollar futures trading

the contingent valuation study of the wind farm burfellslundur willingness to pay for preservation abstract following the success of two trial wind turbines the national power company of iceland landsvirkjun proposed a wind farm at burfellslundur on the edge of the icelandic highlands the farm would comprise of 67 turbines with combined production capacity of 200 mw the environmental impact assessment for the development raised concerns about the visual impacts of the proposals on the surrounding countryside in this study the contingent valuation method was applied to evaluate preferences and estimate willingness to pay to preserve burfellslundur this study represents only the third contribution in the international academic literature concerning the economic value of the environmental costs of developing wind farms and the first focused on onshore resources in addition this paper fulfills a call by the oecd who have requested that iceland commence economic valuation of the environmental impacts of energy projects a web based contingent valuation survey was developed and issued by the university of iceland s social science research institute receiving 690 respondents of these 28 were willing to pay for preservation interval regression using log transformation was applied to estimate mean willingness to pay which was 12 549 isk approximately us 128 when scaled up to the icelandic population of taxpayers the economic value of preserving burfellslundur was estimated to be 3 17 billion isk approximately us 32 3 million these results are of a scale that could have a significant impact on the social welfare gains or losses associated with burfellslundur and inform the international land use management debate concerning the trade offs of developing wind farms

the recreational value of lake mckenzie fraser island an application of the travel cost method lake mckenzie is one of the most highly used and popular visitor destinations of all fraser island s natural sites attracting 2000 visitors a day in peak periods many consider this level of visitation to be unsustainable and the management authority is currently considering a range of management options to address this issue in assessing the alternatives it is useful to have some idea of the recreational use value of the lake under the current regime as it is this value that is at risk if visitor numbers are to be reduced this paper using the zonal travel cost method estimates the recreational use value of fraser island and lake mckenzie for australian resident independent visitors

the international financial market and us interest rates abstract this paper examines the linkages between the eurodollar and us domestic financial markets it is shown that using weekly data allows the isolation of significant fluctuations being transmitted between markets in both directions in particular financial markets in the us are affected significantly by foreign events it is impossible to reach precise conclusions about the causes of historical variation in the rates however this paper provides evidence that at most 40 of the variation in eurodollar interest rates over the 1975 1978 period can be traced to domestic us sources and that between about one fifth and two thirds of the variation in domestic rates can be traced to foreign sources

autoregressive modelling and money income causality detection abstract a step wise procedure based on granger s concept of causality and abaike s final prediction error criterion is suggested as a practical means to identify the order of lags of each variable in a multivariate autoregressive process the model seems useful because it can serve as a reduced form formulation to avoid imposing often spurious or false restrictions of the model it also provides a reasonably powerful test of causality the idea is applied to u s postwar money and income data it is found that between m1 and gnp a bivariate feedback model fits the data best between m2 and gnp a one way causal model from money to income performs better diagnostic checks applied to our model seem to indicate the adequacy of our approach

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

estimating the use and preservation values of national parks tourism resources using a contingent valuation method abstract the korean national parks authority has questioned whether natural resources have enough economic value to justify an increase in admission fee in the case of inadequate assistance from the government alternatively they also question whether the national parks have sufficient value to contribute to citizens welfare in order to receive continuing support from the government hence the purpose of this research is to estimate the use and preservation values of natural and or cultural resources in five distinctive national parks using a dichotomous choice contingent valuation method the empirical results show that natural and or cultural resources of the sample national parks possessed considerable use and preservation values outweighing current admission fees and maintenance costs per visitor thus these values provide enough justification for the national park authority to increase admission fees to maintain the quality of natural environment and avoid degrading natural resources in the event of no assistance by the government the findings may provide guidance to national park managers and practitioners who establish pricing policies the results also show that values of natural and or cultural resources were different across five distinctive national parks indicating the possibility of employing differential admission fees according to park characteristics

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

information and the concept of option value this paper examines the arrow fisher henry concept of option value and analyzes its properties including its relationship to the value of information and the effects of increasing uncertainty about the future consequences of irreversible development it is shown that this option value is distinct from but bounded by the value of information in the overall decision problem also it is distinct from a concept of option value that appears in b s bernanke quart j econom 98 85 106 1983 however when there is a continuum of development levels rather than a binary choice between full development and no development some of these conclusions need to be modified

the international transmission of interest rates a note on causal relationships between short term external and domestic u s dollar returns abstract this study extends the literature of capital market integration by investigating the relationship between u s dollar yield behavior in the domestic and in the external dollar market recognizing recent increases in world capital market speed of adjustment the analysis is based on daily changes in yields using granger causality tests much of the adjustmemt appears to be contemporaneous if contemporaneous is defined as weekly as opposed to daily changes and the eurodollar market adjusts more rapidly and more completely to changes in the domestic market than the domestic market adjusts to changes in the eurodollar market

a note on euroyen and domestic yen interest rates abstract this study examines interest rate transmission between the london euroyen market and the japanese domestic cd market the results which span 1984 through the beginning of 1993 indicate that these two interest rate series are cointegrated in the earlier part of the sample period causality is strongest from the euroyen market to domestic yen interest rates however strong feedback effects are observed in both directions in more recent years the use of both vector autoregressive modeling and cointegration analysis for forecasting is supported over random walk models

cost benefit analysis and environmental policy the use of cost benefit analysis cba in british environmental policy has gone through several stages early applications of cba tended to ignore environmental impacts altogether leave them for a subsidiary impact analysis or provide only a partial monetization of impacts currently cba is the subject of renewed interest in government departments in the environment agency and among other agencies providing guidance and advice to government while the amount of cba being undertaken has increased its influence on policy making is open to question obstacles remain much cba is expensive and this means that benefits transfer is widely regarded as essential currently however the validity of much benefits transfer is questionable other problems arise from misunderstandings about the nature of economic values and the links to individuals self interest and from concerns that cba results will crowd out flexibility in decision making especially the likely context of multiple political objectives over and above economic efficiency none the less cba has begun to have influence in the setting of environmental taxes and alternative decision rules appear to suffer as many if not more shortcomings as those faced by cba copyright 1998 by oxford university press

causal linkages between us and eurodollar interest rates further evidence this study examines causal linkages between us and eurodollar interest rates during 1983 2002 recursive cointegration analysis shows that a stable cointegration relationship between the two interest rates emerges only since the early 1990s when the fed used federal funds rate targeting and eliminated the reserve requirement on eurocurrency deposits the study further reveals that bidirectional causality exists between the two rates over the period of 1993 to 2002 while unidirectional causality from eurodollar rate to the us rate is found to exist over the period of 1983 to 1991 these findings consistently support increased interest rate linkages especially since the early 1990s

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

a multivariate cointegration analysis of interest rates in the eurocurrency market abstract a multivariate cointegration methodology is utilized to analyze relations among interest rates on us dollars uk pounds german marks french francs and japanese yen in the eurocurrency market over a period with major capital market deregulations and increasingly globalized money market trading three major results appear it is appropriate to model these interest rates as a multivariate cointegrated system no interest rate may be excluded from the cointegrating relations a recursive cointegration approach indicates that the number of cointegration vectors increases in the later part of the sample period consequently this study supports the hypothesis of a substantial increase in euromarket interest rate comovements jel e40 f02 1997 elsevier science ltd

does realism matter in contingent valuation surveys the importance of stressing the realism or policy relevance of a contingent valuation cv survey is commonly recognized by cv researchers this paper focuses on the relationship between the probability that a subject s response will result in real consequences and the subject s accurate reporting of willingness to pay results from experiments support the argument that efforts to make contingent valuation surveys real are important however our results also suggest that the connection between the survey and the likelihood of a payment must be rather powerful before surveys generate accurate reporting of willingness to pay for a public good

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