supply of biomass bioenergy and carbon mitigation method and application this study develops an analytical framework for deriving the supply of biomass feedstock and subsequently electricity and co2 displacement generated from the biomass this systematic approach minimizes the total cost of both feedstock and electricity production and involves the determination of the optimal power plant size and the derivation of the supply curves the analytical framework is applied to the case of logging residues in the us both the theoretical and empirical results point to the importance of simultaneously considering feedstock production energy conversion and environmental benefits costs in bioenergy project development leading to useful policy implications for bioenergy development and deployment

understanding heterogeneous preferences in random utility models a latent class approach a finite mixture approach toconditional logit models is developed in whichlatent classes are used to promoteunderstanding of systematic heterogeneity the model is applied to wilderness recreationin which a branded choice experiment involvingchoice of one park from a demand system wasadministered to a sample of recreationists the basis of membership in the classes orsegments in the sample involved attitudinalmeasures of motivations for taking a trip aswell as their stated preferences overwilderness park attributes the econometricanalysis suggested that four classes of peopleexist in the sample using the model toexamine welfare measures of some hypotheticalpolicy changes identified markedly differentwelfare effects than the standard singlesegment model and provided insight into thedifferential impact of alternative policies

progress along the path evolving issues in the measurement of genuine saving more than 10 years since a practical linkage between sustainable development and a measure of national wealth expanded to include natural and environmental resources was first posited the empirical estimation of adjusted net savings dubbed genuine saving has evolved considerably in this paper we take stock of both progress achieved and the challenges that remain we begin by recalling the key points made in pearce and atkinson 1993 ecol econ 8 103 which presented the first cross country estimates of savings rates adjusted to reflect depletion and degradation of the environment we then briefly summarise the evolution of the theoretical argument linking savings and sustainability however the main focus of this paper is an aspect that concerned david pearce greatly namely the evolution of the measurement of genuine savings we identify and consider the empirical evidence with regard to two particular measurement issues the valuation of exhaustible resources and environmental degradation common to the both issues are concerns about measuring changes in national wealth in real world economies

qualitative and quantitative evidence on the true local welfare costs of forest conservation in madagascar are discrete choice experiments a valid ex ante tool summary protected areas may impose local welfare costs through the enforcement of use restrictions predicting their welfare impacts before their establishment could help with the design of compensation schemes discrete choice experiments dces are increasingly used for ex ante evaluations but their validity is largely untested in low income settings using a case study of a new redd reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation project in eastern madagascar we explore the validity of dces in two ways i whether the estimates of welfare costs derived from dce are affected by respondents prior experience of conservation ii whether dce results have high theoretical and content validity we surveyed households who have varying degrees of experience of restrictions to swidden agriculture we also qualitatively debriefed a sub sample of respondents to better understand their thought processes latent class analysis shows that dce outcomes vary with conservation experience households more experienced with forest protection are less willing to trade off rights to clear forest for swidden agriculture with any compensatory interventions whereas less experienced households highly favor support for alternative agricultural techniques and a secure right to clear one hectare of forest although the results show apparent non attendance to some attributes e g cash payments qualitative debriefings suggest that respondents infact do expect relatively low or no utility from the given attributes and hence have theoretically valid preferences similarly the dce has generally high content validity although dce can elicit current preferences in this context using ex ante dce to estimate the welfare costs of such a long term intervention requires caution we conclude that it is difficult to robustly estimate compensation in advance of an intervention there is therefore a need to rethink conservation approaches and the feasibility of achieving fair compensations for conservation imposed restrictions

what aspects of formality do workers value evidence from a choice experiment in bangladesh this study uses a choice experiment among 2 000 workers in bangladesh to elicit willingness to pay wtp for job attributes a contract termination notice working hours paid leave and a pension fund using a stated preference method allows calculation of wtp for benefits in this setting despite the lack of data on worker transitions and the fact that many workers are self employed which makes it difficult to use revealed preference methods workers highly value job stability the average worker would be willing to forego a 27 percent increase in income to obtain a 1 year contract relative to no contract or to forego a 12 percent increase to obtain thirty days of termination notice there is substantial heterogeneity in wtp by type of employment and gender women value shorter working hours more than men while government workers place a higher value on contracts than do private sector employees

heterogeneity of preferences for the benefits of environmental stewardship a latent class approach since 2005 environmental stewardship es has been the principal agri environment scheme for england and is the key instrument for the delivery of increased environmental benefits from agricultural landscapes the main objective of this study is to investigate whether or not individuals preferences for the environmental benefits associated with es vary depending on types of landscapes within which these benefits are delivered a latent class model is applied to data obtained from a choice experiment survey of over 1000 respondents sampled across england the results suggest that individuals have heterogenous preferences for the benefits of es though different segments of the population with more homogenous preferences can be identified in particular higher levels of benefit are often associated with the operation of es in landscapes close to where respondents live this leads to the suggestion that in order to maximise the benefits of es its implementation could take this result into account by encouraging greater uptake from farmers whose land is closer to large populations

green net value added as a sustainability metric based on life cycle assessment an application to bounty paper towel abstract sustainability measurement in economics includes assessment of environmental and economic effects in an integrated manner in this study system level economic data are integrated with environmental impacts determined from a life cycle assessment lca of a common product we adopt a costing methodology that captures conventional costs but additionally incorporates externality costs to present a convenient easily interpretable metric green net value added gnva is a type of full cost accounting that incorporates total revenue the cost of production depreciation and environmental externalities we present externality costs disaggregated by upstream sectors full cost of production and gnva to evaluate the relative sustainability of bounty paper towels manufactured at two production facilities we found that the longer running more established line had a higher gnva the predominant components contributing to externality costs come from the stationary sources in the supply chain electricity generation 27 35 refineries 20 21 pulp and paper making 15 23 health related externalities from particulate matter pm2 5 and carbon dioxide equivalent co2e emissions are to a great extent driven by electricity usage and emissions by the facilities followed by pulp processing and transport supply chains for other facility purchases product distribution and end of life management contribute the least to the environmental health related costs

reconsidering heterogeneity and aggregation issues in environmental valuation a multi attribute approach the economic valuation of complex environmental goods composed of multiple attributes is an expanding field of research in ecological and environmental economics however several issues are still subjects of debate this paper focuses on three of them the linearity of the valuation function in the attributes aggregation criteria for obtaining social values and the heterogeneity of individuals utility functions a methodological approach based on multi attribute utility theory which enables us to contrast the impact of these concerns on the valuation of environmental goods is proposed we employ the methodology to value a protected natural area and from the results obtained we can conclude that the non linearity and the heterogeneity of the individual utility function are relevant aspects of environmental valuation that need to be taken into account when valuing environmental goods

perceptions versus objective measures of environmental quality in combined revealed and stated preference models of environmental valuation abstract this study examines perceptions and objective attribute measures in discrete choice models of recreation site choice behavior these forms of attribute measurement are examined in individual and combined revealed preference stated preference models our results suggest that the model based on perceptions slightly outperforms the models based on objective attribute measures however issues such as the definition of the choice set and the measurement of welfare present significant challenges when using perceptions data

estimating maximum land use change potential from a regional biofuel industry abstract the maximum amount of land for growing switchgrass for ethanol is estimated for a region in the southeastern u s breakeven capacities are calculated for land in row crops hay pasture and marginal land characteristics of land categories inform potential land use change impacts as well as switchgrass profitability variable yields within and across land categories are translated into distributions of switchgrass net revenue breakeven curves are generated for a range of switchgrass prices these curves provide upper bounds for further analysis of actual switchgrass adoption in context of broader economic forces and possible policy mechanisms to minimize environmental impacts a farm gate price of 55 mg 1 is estimated for half of marginal and pasturelands to break even with switchgrass at this price only 20 of land in hay and a small fraction of row crop hectares break even half of hay and row crops hectares break even at approximately 90 mg 1 and 100 mg 1 respectively at 60 mg 1 sufficient land area can profitably produce switchgrass for ethanol to displace approximately 10 of gasoline consumed in georgia north carolina and south carolina however this price only indicates breakeven capacity implying that higher prices may be necessary to realize 10 displacement

activities in models of recreational demand scholars have taken divergent approaches to incorporating on site activities into their empirical specifications of site choice models we provide a framework for assessing this methodological heterogeneity through a model that explicitly allows individuals to choose both on site activities and site attributes this model not only conditions the marginal value of site attributes on the choice of an activity but also explicitly recovers the marginal rates of substitution across activities this eliminates previously unrecognized biases in the welfare analysis of changes in site attributes we test hypotheses generated by our model by comparing rival models of demand for access to beaches in costa rica

do increases in energy efficiency improve environmental quality and sustainability governments world wide increasingly see energy efficiency as an important aspect of sustainability however there is a debate in the literature as to whether the impact of improved energy efficiency on reducing energy use might be partially or more than wholly offset through rebound and backfire effects this paper clarifies the theoretical conditions under which such effects would occur and explores their likely significance using a computable general equilibrium cge model of the scottish economy we find that for scotland a general improvement in energy efficiency in the production sectors of the economy initially produces rebound effects that eventually grow into backfire energy use ultimately increases in response to an efficiency gain and the ratio of gdp to co2 emissions falls the economic factors underpinning rebound effects are straightforward energy efficiency improvements result in an effective cut in energy prices which produces output substitution competitiveness and income effects that stimulate energy demands however the presence of strong rebound or even backfire does not mean that efficiency enhancing policies are irrelevant rather it suggests that such policies operating alone are insufficient to generate environmental improvements the implication is that a co ordinated portfolio of energy policies is required

land allocation effects of the global ethanol surge predictions from the international fapri model we quantify the emergence of biofuel markets and its impact on world agriculture using the multimarket multicommodity international fapri model the model incorporates trade offs between biofuel feed and food production and consumption and international feedback effects of the emergence through world prices and trade we shock the model with exogenous changes in ethanol demand first in the united states then in brazil and other countries and compute shock multipliers for land allocation decisions for important crops and countries the brazilian ethanol expansion using sugarcane has fewer consequences on existing arable land allocation than the u s ethanol expansion does using corn feedstock

combining ecological and recreational aspects in national park management a choice experiment application increasing pressure to diversify development of national parks emphasizes the need for new and relevant information for park management decisions in this paper we use choice experiment to value different tradeoffs that evolved in park development scenarios specifically we examine which kind of development profiles are worth considering and which paths not to follow we focus on biodiversity and recreational services provided by oulanka national park in finland which represents a popular recreation site attracting a large number of visitors the increase of biodiversity was the most highly valued feature by the respondent national park visitors thus our results show that the protection of biodiversity and recreational and tourism use of national parks can cause conflicting welfare effects if managed in inappropriate ways increasing the number of visitors expanding present resting places constructing new resting places and an intense increase in information boards especially if combined with shrinking biodiversity are welfare reducing managerial actions in national parks

resource depletion and sustainability in small open economies abstract exogenous price changes affect the amount that a small country exporting natural resource commodities must invest to sustain its consumption level the necessary amount is given by the difference between hotelling rent and the discounted sum of future terms of trade effects capital gains the latter term is found to be large relative to the former in the case of petroleum depletion in indonesia this suggests that resource rich countries will need to invest more than previously expected to sustain their consumption levels if natural resource prices continue their long term historical decline

random coefficient models for stated preference surveys abstract this paper combines the use of random coefficient discrete choice models that allow for correlated errors in the form of unobserved preference heterogeneity with an investigation of the reliability and usefulness of rankings data for the data we examine we find significant unobserved preference heterogeneity in the rankings which violates the underlying assumptions of the rank ordered logit model further directly modeling unobserved preference heterogeneity results in significant improvement in the precision of the parameter estimates and in estimated willingness to pay wtp the reliability and usefulness of rankings data should be re examined with econometric models not subject to the independence of irrelevant alternatives iia

biofuel supply chain design under competitive agricultural land use and feedstock market equilibrium abstract the rapid expansion of the biofuel industry diverts a large amount of agricultural crops as energy feedstocks and in turn affects farm land allocation feedstock market equilibrium and agricultural economic development in local areas in this paper we propose game theoretic models that incorporate farmers decisions on land use and market choice into the biofuel manufacturers supply chain design problem a noncooperative bi level stackelberg leader follower game model and a cooperative game model are developed respectively to address possible business partnership scenarios between feedstock suppliers and biofuel manufacturers the models determine the optimal number and locations of biorefineries the required prices for these refineries to compete for feedstock resources as well as farmers land use choices between food and energy using corn as an example of feedstock crops spatial market equilibrium is utilized to model the relationship between corn supply and demand and the associated price variations in local grain markets with linear corn demand functions we develop a solution approach that transforms the original discrete mathematical program with equilibrium constraints dc mpec into to a solvable mixed integer quadratic programming miqp problem based on karush kuhn tucker kkt conditions the proposed methodology is illustrated using an empirical case study of the illinois state the computation results reveal interesting insights into optimal land use strategies and supply chain design for the emerging biofuel economy

testing genuine savings as a forward looking indicator of future well being over the very long run genuine savings gs have been much used in recent years as an indicator of a country s sustainability according to some theorists e g arrow et al 2012 under certain conditions a country with a positive level of gs should experience non declining future utility given the assumption of unlimited substitutability among all forms of capital sometimes called weak sustainability this paper reports the first very long run tests of gs also called comprehensive investment or adjusted net savings as a forward looking indicator of future well being we assemble data for british capital back to 1765 and construct several net investment measures which are used as indicators of two alternative measures of future well being consumption per capita and real wages an allowance for a value of time due to exogenous technological progress is included in some gs measures and we demonstrate the importance of this measure and the choice of discount rate over the very long run on the whole our results do not reject the postulated relationship between gs and future well being and show gs can be a forward looking indicator of future well being for periods of up to 100 years

a repeated nested logit model of atlantic salmon fishing participation and site choice for atlantic salmon fishing are modeled in the context of a repeated three level nested logit model consumer s surplus measures are derived for different levels of species availability in the penobscot river the most important salmon river in new england for comparison six other travel cost models are estimated these include restrictive cases of the nested logit model a partial demand model and two single site demand models comparisons across these models indicate the importance of modeling the participation decision including income effects and of adopting a nested logit structure rather than a single level logit structure

analysis of genuine saving and potential green net national income portugal 1990 2005 abstract the context of this paper is the measurement of welfare and weak sustainability defined as non declining utility in dynamic economies i e comprehensive or green accounting we estimate green net national income gnni and genuine saving gs for portugal for the years 1990 to 2005 accounting for the disamenity of air pollution emissions the depreciation of commercial forests and the value of time discussing the implications of the assumptions underlying the inclusion of these terms in the green accounting model the influence of short run cycles is analyzed by estimating gnni excluding business cycles our results suggest that business cycles affect the sustainability message of gnni we find that potential gnni is growing and gs is positive in the analyzed period thereby not indicating a weak sustainability problem in portugal although both depict a trend towards unsustainability excluding technological progress there is a contradiction in the sustainability message of gnni and gs

the choice theory approach to market research this paper surveys economic choice theory stressing developments that permit use of data from psychometric and conjoint experiments to produce market demand forecasts alternatives to the widely used multinomial logit model are summarized and a new method for estimating multinomial probits is described an integration of choice models with attitudinal scaling and perceptual mapping within a latent variable system is described estimation of such systems under either random effects or fixed effects descriptions of heterogeneity across individuals is discussed issues in the use of choice models to describe responses from conjoint experiments are presented new regression diagnostic tests for the consistency of multinomial logit representations are discussed

air pollution and green accounts a simple model treating air emissions as cumulative pollutants is used to derive measures of green net national product the model implies that pollution emissions are properly valued at their marginal social costs in the measurement of green nnp the level of genuine savings net savings less the value of resource depletion and pollution emissions is shown to provide a useful indicator of sustainable development recent figures on the social costs of fuel cycles are used to derive genuine savings measures for the uk and other european nations several countries had negative genuine savings during the 1980s

well being and or quality of life in eu countries through a multidimensional index of sustainability abstract the aim of my paper is to demonstrate that sen s theory of well being can be applied to make the concept of sustainable human development operational through the building of a multidimensional index of sustainability which takes into account at the same time economic social and environmental variables this index may be considered an alternative to the current measures of welfare sustainability since not only conventional measures such as gdp but also multi attribute indices such as human development index hdi genuine savings index of sustainable economic welfare isew etc are found to be inadequate to make the concept of sustainable development operational therefore the limitations of these measures of welfare sustainability justify the search for a new index of sustainability this index will show at the operational level how sen s theory of well being can be useful to sustainable development it was applied to eu countries using the standardised deviation methodology being the closest and most suitable methodology to be adopted for building multidimensional indices the factor analysis methodology will also be used in my paper lastly the comparison between sen s trend of sustainability and gdp trend index number which are both of them applied to italy will show how much the criticisms and the limitations directed towards the indicator of gdp are founded

the social cost of carbon and its policy implications the shadow price or social cost of carbon is an important indicator of the global incremental damage done by emitting greenhouse gases today cost benefit analysis would set the optimal amount of greenhouse gas emission reduction at the point where this social cost just equals the incremental cost of controlling emissions the higher the value for the social cost of carbon the more control is warranted this comparison assumes that cost benefit analysis is the correct way of determining climate change policy and many believe this is not the case because of the very long term irreversible and potentially catastrophic nature of global warming but in the short run at least a comparison of cost and benefits is required and in any event all decisions imply costs and benefits but what is the right figure for the social cost of carbon this paper reviews the uk government s assessment of the cost and concludes that it has been set far too high because of a misreading of the integrated assessment models used to balance costs and benefits moreover adoption of the uk government s shadow price would have formidable implications for energy policy in the uk and for policies on afforestation copyright 2003 oxford university press

farmers willingness to contract switchgrass as a cellulosic bioenergy crop in kansas farmers adoption of cellulosic biofuel feedstock enterprises plays an important role in the future of agriculture and the renewable fuels industry however no set markets currently exist for bioenergy feedstocks outside of very localized geographic locations and farmers may be reluctant to produce the feedstocks without contracts that help mitigate uncertainty and risk this study examines farmers willingness to grow switchgrass under contract using a stated choice approach data were collected using an enumerated survey of kansas farmers and analyzed using latent class logistic regression models farmers whose primary enterprise is livestock are less inclined to grow switchgrass shorter contracts greater harvest flexibility crop insurance and cost share assistance increase the likelihood that farmers will grow switchgrass for bioenergy production

designing a payments for ecosystem services pes program to reduce deforestation in tanzania an assessment of payment approaches abstract payments for ecosystem services pes programs aim to improve environmental outcomes by providing direct incentives to land managers for the provision of ecosystem services participation in pes programs is voluntary so effective program design requires careful consideration of farmers preferences this study quantifies such preferences using a choice experiment the study site is the east usambara mountains tanzania an internationally recognized biodiversity hotspot we assess preferences for four payment approaches constant and variable annual cash payments to individual farmers a constant annual cash payment to a village fund on behalf of farmers and an upfront manure fertilizer payment we find that the manure fertilizer payment was statistically significant in motivating farmer participation while the group payment was non significant in addition the relationship between the likelihood of participation and the stringency of conditionality is surprisingly non linear in a test of external validity average willingness to accept wta values are found to be similar to the average opportunity cost of maintaining land uses consistent with conservation objectives

contract theory and implications for perennial energy crop contracting abstract this article provides an overview of modern contract theory and discusses the implications of the theory for contracting for perennial dedicated energy crops we discuss some of the unique challenges of contracting for dedicated energy crops used for the production of advanced biofuels and survey some of the relevant concepts and research from the contract theory literature to address these challenges we focus primarily on the mechanism design or complete contracts approach to contracting which involves optimizing some objective function e g profits costs etc with respect to contract terms subject to important incentive constraints the solution to these optimization problems typically highlight important tradeoffs that a contract designer needs to consider in order to maximize profits and or minimize costs

the effect of mail in utility rebates on willingness to pay for energy star textregistered certified refrigerators the number and variety of governmental programs designed to promote energy efficiency have increased over time examples include mandatory minimum efficiency standards subsidies for more energy efficient goods and services and consumer labels such as the united states environmental protection agency s energy star textregistered while there has been considerable research on the effects of these programs in isolation there has been less of a focus on joint effects or interactions between programs this study examines how the offer of a mail in rebate influences consumer willingness to pay for an energy star certified refrigerator data used for this study were collected from an online survey containing a hypothetical choice experiment conducted in the united states in 2009 results suggest that the offer of a rebate induces uncertainty about the quality of energy star certified refrigerators and thus could actually reduce willingness to pay for such refrigerators

using choice experiments to investigate the policy relevance of heterogeneity in farmer agri environmental contract preferences agri environmental contracts are used to provide incentives for nature management on private land in e g the european union the aim of this article is to investigate preference heterogeneity for agri environmental contracts among farmers in order to discuss potential policy improvements utilising heterogeneity we used a choice experiment to elicit farmers stated preferences for afforestation contracts four attributes are investigated purpose of afforestation option of cancelling the contract monitoring and compensation level all attributes present a potential conflict between farmers and authorities interests which emphasises the importance of knowing how to handle these interests a random parameter logit model shows that having the option to cancel the contract decreases farmers required compensation level and monitoring increases it furthermore farmers are willing to accept a lower compensation when the aim is to protect biodiversity and ground water relative to recreation latent class models with class probability variables reveal discrete heterogeneity and support a division into four groups with divergent preferences for example a group of farmers who already have forest areas does not find the option of cancelling the contract important whereas another group relying on the farm for income requires higher compensation the findings indicate potential for efficiency gains from targeting the contracts

switching to perennial energy crops under uncertainty and costly reversibility we study a farmer s decision to convert traditional cropland into land for growing dedicated energy crops taking into account sunk conversion costs and uncertainties in crop returns the optimal decision rules differ significantly from the expected net present value rule which ignores uncertainties and from real options models that allow only one way conversion into energy crops these models also predict drastically different patterns of land conversions into and out of energy crops over time using corn soybean rotation and switchgrass as examples we show that the model predictions are sensitive to assumptions about stochastic processes of the returns government policies might have unintended consequences subsidizing conversion costs into switchgrass may not much affect proportions of land in switchgrass in the long run

modeling preference heterogeneity in stated choice data an analysis for public goods generated by agriculture stated choice models based on the random utility framework are becoming increasingly popular in the applied economics literature the need to account for respondents preference heterogeneity in such models has motivated researchers in agricultural environmental health and transport economics to apply random parameter logit and latent class models in most of the published literature these models incorporate heterogeneity in preferences through the systematic component of utility an alternative approach is to investigate heterogeneity through the random component of utility and covariance heterogeneity models are one means of doing this in this article we compare these alternative ways of incorporating preference heterogeneity in stated choice models and evaluate the sensitivity of estimated welfare measures to which approach is selected we find that a latent class approach fits our data best but all the models perform well in terms of out of sample predictions finally we discuss what criteria a researcher can use to decide which approach is most appropriate for a given data set

evaluating water policy scenarios against the priorities of the rural poor summary a stated choice method evaluates how well water policy responds to the preferences of the rural poor in south africa household priorities to experimental scenarios of water resource and water services attributes are investigated in two communities with poor water access in a semi arid zone results identify improved water accessibility as the most important intervention for social welfare gains particularly benefiting female water collectors a latent class specification reveals two sub groups with different weighted preferences this specification reinforces the primacy of domestic water access and also identifies a smaller but significant group with preferences for water availability for kitchen garden irrigation

effects on welfare measures of alternative means of accounting for preference heterogeneity in recreational demand models multiattribute revealed preference data are used to investigate heterogeneity in a sample of kayakers for a panel of whitewater sites in ireland this article focuses on a comparison of preference heterogeneity using a random parameter logit model with correlated tastes and a latent class model in terms of the implications for welfare measures of environmental quality and site access changes recreationalists skill levels are found to affect preferences in both approaches statistics for the estimated distribution of welfare changes for the average respondent are computed for changes in site attributes but contrary to previous work these are found to be of similar magnitude

fuzzy logic and preference uncertainty in non market valuation in seeking to value environmental amenities and public goods individuals often have trouble trading off the vague good or amenity against a monetary measure valuation in these circumstances can best be described as fuzzy in terms of the amenity being valued perceptions of property rights and the numbers chosen to reflect values in this paper we apply fuzzy logic to contingent valuation employing a fuzzy clustering approach for incorporating preference uncertainty obtained from a follow up certainty confidence question we develop a fuzzy random utility maximization frum framework where the perceived utility of each individual is fuzzy in the sense that an individual s utility belongs to each cluster to some degree the model is then applied to a swedish survey that elicited residents willingness to pay for enhanced forest conservation and to a canadian survey of agricultural landowners that elicited their willingness to accept compensation for a tree planting program both the wtp and wta measures we obtain using the fuzzy approach are well below those obtained using standard probability methods based on goodness of fit measures and monte carlo experimentation a case can be made for using a fuzzy preference approach for modeling preference uncertainty as opposed to incorporating respondent uncertainty within the random utility maximization framework

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

respondent experience and contingent valuation of environmental goods abstract respondent experience i e a respondent s information set has long been suspected to influence contingent valuation estimates of environmental values we assess the influence of experience by explicitly modeling the relationship between respondent experience and both fitted individual resource values and the conditional variance of these estimated values using three different joint specifications for experience and wtp normal censored normal poisson censored normal and zero inflated poisson censored normal we find discrete jumps in resource values as experience increases from zero and that more experienced respondents have smaller conditional variances simulation of arbitrary levels of experience allows standardization of the amount of information when developing welfare estimates

modeling government program participation decisions at the farm level changes in the u s farm economy during the 1980s have caused many farmers to give careful consideration to participation in the government farm program analytical techniques to identify optimal participation and resulting crop mix strategies at a whole farm level can aid farmers faced with these decisions this paper presents a mathematical programming approach adaptable to farm level decision analysis an empirical example involving a texas farm suggests that resource levels base acreage endowments limited cross compliance and returns outside the program can influence participation decisions government program participation decisions heavily influence the crop mix decision on many farms in the united states features such as base acreage limited cross com

public preferences for hydrogen buses comparing interval data ols and quantile regression approaches we use a quantile regression qr approach to analyse contingent valuation estimates of public willingness to pay wtp for the air and noise pollution reductions associated with the introduction of hydrogen buses in london qr results show that variables that were not significant in interval regression or ordinary least squares regression become significant at certain quantiles along the wtp distribution in addition the determinants of wtp at the lower tail of the distribution differ from those at the higher end of the distribution our findings illustrate the usefulness of quantile regression methods for analysing contingent valuation data enhancing our understanding of the determinants of willingness to pay

bioenergy crop production in the united states potential quantities land use changes and economic impacts on the agricultural sector the u s departments of agriculture and energyjointly analyzed the economic potential for and impacts of large scale bioenergy cropproduction in the united states anagricultural sector model polysys wasmodified to include three potential bioenergycrops switchgrass hybrid poplar and willow at farmgate prices of us 2 44 gj anestimated 17 million hectares of bioenergycrops annually yielding 171 million dry mg ofbiomass could potentially be produced at aprofit greater than existing agricultural usesfor the land the estimate assumes highproductivity management practices are permittedon conservation reserve program lands traditional crops prices are estimated toincrease 9 to 14 percent above baseline pricesand farm income increases annually by us 6 0billion above baseline at farmgate prices of us 1 83 gj anestimated 7 9 million hectares of bioenergycrops annually yielding 55 million dry mg ofbiomass could potentially be produced at aprofit greater than existing agricultural usesfor the land the estimate assumes managementpractices intended to achieve highenvironmental benefits on conservation reserveprogram lands traditional crops prices areestimated to increase 4 to 9 percent abovebaseline prices and farm income increasesannually by us 2 8 billion above baseline

historical wealth accounts for britain progress and puzzles in measuring the sustainability of economic growth we thank the leverhulme trust for funding this research under the project history and the future

klein s price variability terms in the u s demand for money a note one recent innovation in the empirical work on the demand for money has been the inclusion of a measure of the past or future variability of the inflation rate or the interest rate 1 one particularly unique empirical and theoretical treatment is developed by klein 12 who reports a positive and significant effect on the u s demand for money by a price uncertainty variable s p which allegedly measures the quality of cash balances these results substantiate his theoretical development that an increase in the uncertainty of the inflation rate lowers the quality of the services from a stock of money which thereby increases the demand for money the s p term represents a measure of the past variability of the rate of change of prices and is analogous to an adaptive expectations term for the rate of inflation 2

a probabilistic choice model for market segmentation and elasticity structure marketing scholars commonly characterize market structure by studying the patterns of substitution implied by brand switching though the approach is useful it typically ignores the destabilizing

supply and social cost estimates for biomass from crop residues in the united states the components of social costsincluded in the supply analysis are cashoutlays and opportunity costs associated withharvest and alternative residue uses potentialenvironmental damage that is avoided byexcluding unsuitable land and costs in movingresidues from farms to processing plants regional estimates account for the growingconditions and crops of the main agriculturalareas of the united states estimates includethe main u s field crops with potential forresidue harvest corn wheat sorghum oats barley rice and cane sugar the potentialcontribution of residues to u s energy needsis discussed

benefit estimates for landscape improvements sequential bayesian design and respondents rationality in a choice experiment a multi attribute stated preference approach is used to value low and high impact actions on four major landscape components addressed by the rural environment protection scheme in ireland several methodological issues are addressed the use of prior beliefs on the relative magnitudes of parameters standardized description of different levels of landscape improvements via image manipulation software adoption of efficiency increasing sequential experimental design and sensitivity of benefit estimates to inclusion of responses from irrational respondents results suggest that bayesian design updating delivers significant efficiency gains without loss in respondent efficiency and estimates are upward biased when irrational respondents are included

sustainability and technical progress a rigorous model connects together the following three basic concepts 1 sustainability meaning the generalized future power of an economy to consume over time 2 green nnp meaning a current measure of national income that subtracts off from gnp not just depreciation of capital but also more generally depletion of environmental assets evaluated at current efficiency prices 3 technological progress meaning a projection onto the future of the so called solow residual a simple general formula is derived some crude calculations suggest a possibly strong effect of the residual which hints that our best present estimates of long term sustainability may be largely driven by predictions of future technological progress

market potential for smart growth neighbourhoods in the usa a latent class analysis on heterogeneous preference and choice with data from a 2011 national association of realtors community preference survey we examined individuals preferences and the resulting market potential for smart growth neighbourhoods in the usa using a latent class choice model we discovered four classes of individuals that reveal distinctive behaviours when choosing smart growth neighbourhoods based on the interplay between aspects of community design socioeconomic characteristics and personal attitudes based on these results we estimated the demand for smart growth neighbourhoods given the way they are planned and built by linking the results of the latent class choice to a market diffusion model we were able to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed smart growth neighbourhood design in inducing less sprawling development

comparing augmented sustainability measures for scotland is there a mismatch we estimate and compare two empirical measures of the weak sustainability of an economy for the first time the change in augmented green net national product gnnp and the interest on augmented genuine savings gs yearly calculations are given for each measure for scotland during 1992 1999 augmentation means including using projections to 2020 changed production possibilities enabled by exogenous technical progress or changing oil prices the change in augmented gnnp and the interest on augmented gs are both always positive showing no sustainability problem for scotland then according to the assumptions underlying our weak sustainability calculations however the former greatly exceeds the latter even when macroeconomic fluctuations are taken into account this is a mismatch which poses an unresolved problem with the theory resolving it may require respecifying the utility functions used in mainstream growth theory

a latent class approach to investigating demand for genetically modified banana in uganda this study explores consumer acceptance and valuation of a genetically modified gm staple food crop in a developing country prior to its commercialization we focus on the hypothetical introduction of a disease resistant gm banana variety in uganda where bananas are among the most important staple crops a choice experiment is used to investigate consumer preferences for various attributes related to the banana such as bunch size technology producer benefit and price and examine their opinions on gm foodstuff choice data come from 421 banana consuming households randomly selected from three regions of uganda a latent class model is used to investigate the heterogeneity in consumers preferences for selected attributes related to the banana and to profile consumers who are more or less likely to accept gm bananas our results reveal that there is significant heterogeneity in consumer preferences across our sample gm bananas are valued the most by poorer households located in the rural areas of the eastern region these food insecure households would experience the highest benefits i e welfare gains from the commercial release of gm bananas in contrast urban consumers are less accepting of gm bananas and they would experience significant welfare losses if gm banana is released according to our welfare estimates both the total welfare benefits acquired by the gainers and the total welfare losses borne by the losers of this technology are significant and large these results suggest the need for further investigation of the overall welfare effects of the introduction of gm bananas on the ugandan society as a whole

assessment of the theory of comprehensive national accounting with data for portugal we present time series tests of the quality of genuine savings and green net national income for predicting welfare changes these tests check the validity of the theory of comprehensive national accounting and more broadly of the theory of economic growth the value of technological progress is included as well as the effects of business cycles we use estimates for portugal as inputs overall our results indicate that both genuine savings and changes in green net national income have the same sign as changes in welfare but reject the hypothesis that the estimated comprehensive national accounting measures coincide with the theoretical expressions the results also suggest that comprehensive accounting indicators perform better than conventional national accounting indicators implying that in general the corrections proposed by the comprehensive accounting theory add explanatory power to conventional measures the exception is the inclusion of education expenditures and technological progress which decrease explanatory power excluding business cycles from green net national income increases the agreement with the theory comparing both indicators in general genuine savings presents better results

measuringincome and measuring sustainability we examine what interpretation can be given to inclusive income understood to be consumption plus the value of the net increase in all relevant capital stocks we introduce the concept of instantaneously constant value income defined as the maximum amount the economy can consume at a moment of time and keep the expected present value of utility of current and future generations constant we argue that this income concept captures some of the concerns underlying sustainability our main result is that inclusive income equals instantaneously constant value income we show that this result holds in a very general setting and in particular carries over to models incorporating technological progress when such progress can be captured by augmented stocks of knowledge an important implication of our main result is that it provides a very simple method for deriving inclusive income which does not involve any linearization of the hamiltonian

elasticities of demand and willingness to pay for environmental services in sweden are environmental services luxuriesor necessities are low income groupsrelatively more willing to pay forenvironmental improvements than high incomegroups the discussion on the shape of theenvironmental kuznets curve and environmentaljustice call for analyses that approach thesequestions following a survey based approachfor modelling the demand for public goods thispaper provides estimates of income and priceelasticities of demand for reduced marineeutrophication effects in the case of thebaltic sea using data from five swedishcontingent valuation studies point estimatesindicate that reduced marine eutrophicationeffects can be classified as a necessity and anordinary and price elastic service confidenceintervals show however that the classificationas a necessity is not statisticallysignificant income elasticities of willingnessto pay not to be confused with incomeelasticities of demand are estimated for abroad range of environmental services insweden a basic finding is that income tends toinfluence willingness to pay positively andsignificantly the elasticity estimates are inmost cases greater than zero but less thanunity indicating that the benefits ofenvironmental improvements tend to beregressively distributed in a cost benefitanalysis of a project suggesting environmentalimprovements distributional concerns thereforecall for an introduction of weights or at leasta sensitivity analysis of how weighting wouldchange decisions about the project s socialprofitability

natural resources national accounting and economic depreciation abstract the current value hamiltonian in an aggregate optimal growth problem with heterogeneous capital stocks including exhaustible renewable and environmental stocks is the nnp function routine substitutions reveal that the using up of natural resource stocks is representable as easy to interpret economic depreciation magnitudes we obtain true nnp inclusive of natural resource stock diminution implications for actual national accounting practices are also discussed

empirical testing of genuine savings as an indicator of weak sustainability a three country analysis of long run trends genuine savings has emerged as a widely used indicator of sustainable development this approach to conceptualising what sustainability is about has strong links to work published by anil markandya and colleagues over 20 years ago in this paper we use long term data stretching back to 1870 to undertake empirical tests of the relationship between genuine savings gs and future well being for three countries britain the usa and germany our tests are based on an underlying theoretical relationship between gs and changes in the present value of future consumption based on both single country and panel results we find evidence supporting the existence of a cointegrating long run equilibrium relationship between gs and future well being and fail to reject the basic theoretical result on the relationship between these two macroeconomic variables this provides some support for the gs measure of weak sustainability

sustainability constraints versus optimality versus intertemporal concern and axioms versus data sustainable sustained or survivable development are defined here as distinct sustainability constraints on intertemporal distribution in a context which ignores uncertainty environmental and intratemporal concerns such constraints are neither self contradictory nor redundant for they can conflict with maximizing the present value of utility optimality nor inferior since the axioms underlying optimality are ethically arbitrary and refuted by empirical psychological data axiomatic arguments may clarify but cannot resolve debates about intertemporal concerns data suggest that sustainability constraints are not respected and that intertemporal welfare functions containing a preference for sustained improvement may better reflect what bodies politic mean by sustainability

testing the influence of substitute sites in nature valuation by using spatial discounting factors this paper investigates the effect of nearby nature substitute sites on preferences for nature restoration contrary to prior studies we use a respondent centric approach to control for substitute sites we assess each respondent specific spatial context by computing densities of nature substitute sites within various ranges from each respondent s home this approach considers the use and non use values of nature together data from three similar discrete choice experiments carried out in flanders belgium are compared different spatial discounting factors are tested to explore how the substitution effect behaves with regard to distance latent class analyses are performed to account for preference heterogeneity among respondents we observe divergent behaviours across groups of respondents the distance to substitutes affects how respondents gauge substitute sites we find a significant influence of the squared average buffer distance but this effect varies in sign across case studies and classes of respondents our results demonstrate that individual specific gis data can significantly improve the representation of the spatial context and the transferability of value functions however the roles played by preference heterogeneity and nature perception on respondents capacity to value nature still deserves further attention in future research

status effects and environmental externalities abstract this paper examines a static competitive economy where the production of a consumption good generates pollution that adversely affects human welfare preferences are defined over consumption leisure pollution and economic status each person s status increases with her own consumption but decreases with the average consumption of society the achievement of a pareto efficient resource allocation requires a consumption tax to offset the incentive to overconsume in the pursuit of enhanced status in contrast with standard prescriptions the efficient pollution tax generally exceeds the sum of individuals marginal willingness to pay for pollution abatement these findings remain unaltered when preferences are modified to incorporate altruistic concern for others well being altruism however suggests a potential role for government intervention to achieve a desirable i e pareto efficient distribution of welfare between individuals

heterogeneity in preferences for woody biomass energy in the us mountain west abstract millions of acres of public forest in the us mountain west are substantially degraded and are in need of restoration mechanized restoration treatments can improve forest health and reduce the likelihood of severe wildfire these treatments produce some timber and substantial amounts of forest residues that can be used to generate renewable energy and displace fossil fuels using the choice modeling method this study investigates social preferences for generation of energy with woody biomass produced by restoration treatments on public forests in the mountain west both multinomial logit and latent class logit lcl models are fit to the data and used to estimate marginal willingness to pay mwtp for increased amounts of woody biomass energy generation and important associated co benefits and costs positive and statistically significant mwtp is found for the number of homes powered with wood the extent of healthy forests avoiding increases in the number of large wildfires and local air quality significant heterogeneity was found in respondent preferences for the attributes the heterogeneity can be explained in part by sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics of respondents the lcl revealed four classes of respondents with distinct preferences revealing conflicting viewpoints toward forest management for woody biomass energy generation

estimating distributions of willingness to pay for heterogeneous populations random parameters logit models have emerged as a standard approach in estimating public preferences for a range of goods and services however to simplify calculation of welfare measures the marginal utility of income is often assumed to be constant across the population we show that by shifting distributional assumptions from marginal utilities to the welfare measures themselves a random parameters version of a censored logistic regression model cameron 1988 yields distributions of welfare measures more directly and without imposing any unnecessary assumption on the marginal utility of income we develop the theoretical framework for the model and apply it to contingent choice survey data for siting a noxious facility in rhode island in this application our proposed model and random parameters logit yield similar mean willingness to pay but welfare measures are more readily interpretable in the proposed model

variability of the inflation rate and the forward premium in a money demand function the case of the german hyperinflation since cagan s 1956 classic study the specification of the demand for money in the german hyperinflation has attracted much attention

are citizens willing to pay for agricultural multifunctionality agricultural multifunctionality is the recognition of the joint exercise of economic environmental and social functions by the agricultural sector in order to make the concept operative for the design of public policies it is necessary to estimate the social demand for such functions the main objective of this article is to present an empirical application in this sense for this purpose we have adopted the agricultural system of cereal steppes in tierra de campos in spain as a case study the economic valuation technique used is the choice experiment the results suggest the existence of a significant demand for the different functions although the demand is heterogeneous depending on the socioeconomic characteristics of the individuals surveyed

the role of technological progress in testing adjusted net savings evidence from oecd countries abstract in this paper we investigate the relationship between comprehensive measures of savings and changes in future consumption in oecd countries this relationship is at the basis of the interpretation of adjusted net savings as a weak sustainability indicator and so evidence of its validity provides support to the use of this indicator we construct various measures of comprehensive savings for 20 oecd countries to include depletion from non renewable resources human capital investment and technological progress given their importance especially for rich countries we focus on the role of technical progress and human capital in the form of changes in education level we do not find strong evidence in favor of including green adjustments in the conventional net savings however we find compelling evidence for the inclusion of technological progress since this involves a forward looking term the above result suggests that to construct an indicator of weak sustainability from conventional net savings some estimate of future technological progress is needed

does nnp growth indicate welfare improvement abstract we show that instantaneous increases in real nnp over time are an accurate indicator of true dynamic welfare improvements this highlights a connection between the theory of green or comprehensive national income accounting and the theory of real price indices

embracing model uncertainty strategies for response pooling and model averaging econometricians modeling stated preference sp data and most other types of data are confronted with the uncomfortable reality that our knowledge of the true model is limited with only certain variables suggested by the application at hand and general classes of functional forms and error structures suggested by the literature accepting our limited knowledge we pursue strategies for analyzing sp data that are more robust to uncertainties in our knowledge of the true model these include non parametric and parametric likelihood based tests of pooling responses from different elicitation formats and a frequentist based model averaging approach for estimating willingness to pay functions we argue that these strategies lead to increased econometric integrity and empower the ultimate users of models such as policy decision makers and even juries to better assess the robustness of the results we apply these approaches to an sp survey of saltwater angling in alaska which utilized split sample rankings and ratings elicitation methods while an important goal of our paper is to develop practicable modeling strategies that will ultimately lead to more robust conclusions and more confidence by the users of sp results an equally important goal is to engender a critical discussion of how we can make the analysis of sp data more robust

one sided sustainability tests with amenities and changes in technology trade and population abstract if an economy with multiple consumption goods including environmental amenities uniquely maximises present value with constant discounting it is unsustainable at some time if either of two measures augmented net investment or the change in augmented green net national product are zero or negative then augmented denotes that time is treated as a productive stock which includes in each measure the value of future exogenous changes in technology or terms of trade adjustments are found to make each measure a test for individual sustainability when population grows exogenously the practical and philosophical rationale for testing sustainability in a present value maximising and therefore fully prescribed development path is discussed

farm production decisions under cross and conservation compliance the success of soil conservation compliance cc hinges on participation in commodity programs using mixed integer programming the profitability of participation in commodity programs was examined on seventeen surveyed north carolina farms without cc cross compliance in commodity programs increased projected soil erosion by over 80 when participation increased from 30 to nearly 90 with cc erosion fell by two thirds at the high participation level but decreased by only 1 with low participation individual farm acreage base and crop yield strongly affected the profitability of cc compliance is increasingly profitable on farms with more base acreage and higher yields

combining attitudinal statements with choice experiments to analyze preference heterogeneity for functional dairy products abstract in this article we employ a discrete choice experiment to examine preferences for functional dairy product attributes and willingness to pay estimates for consumers in germany we estimate preference heterogeneity by linking stated preference choice data not only to socioeconomic characteristics but also to attitudinal statements in a latent class framework the empirical results indicate the existence of class specific preference heterogeneity based on the consumers attitude towards functional foods emphasizing the importance of attitudinal data in explaining consumers choice behavior our estimates demonstrate that within a class consumers preferences are in accordance with their responses to attitudinal statements that is functional food skeptics prefer non functional dairy products while functional food advocates have a negative preference for non functional dairy products the findings also show that all consumers place high value on dairy products enriched with known functional ingredients such as omega 3 fatty acids

genuine savings and sustainability genuine savings gs has emerged as the leading economic indicator of sustainable economic development at the country level it derives from the literatures on weak sustainability wealth accounting and national income accounting we discuss the theoretical underpinnings of gs focusing on the relationship between changes in a nation s extended capital stock and the future path of consumption the indicator has entered widespread use propelled by the world bank s publications despite its varying performance as a predictor for future consumption notwithstanding the extensive body of literature reviewed promising future research avenues are identified

do protest responses to a contingent valuation question and a choice experiment differ it is suggested that the number of protest responses in stated preference surveys depends inter alia on the valuation method used choice experiments ce are said to generate a lower number of protest responses than contingent valuation cv however no comparison of both methods with respect to protest responses has been conducted to date we used both ce and cv in a survey on forest biodiversity in two german regions protest beliefs were measured for all respondents irrespective of whether they were willing to pay or not the results show no clear pattern of differences between ce and cv regarding protest beliefs and protest responses using an attitude scale based on respondents protest beliefs we see a significant negative effect of this attitude on willingness to pay in both methods however in one of the two study regions the effect is weaker in ce than in cv

biomass feedstock contracts role of land quality and yield variability in near term feasibility abstract in the absence of an infrastructure for the harvest storage and purchase of cellulosic biomass contracting is an important mechanism through which biorefineries can ensure adequate feedstock supply we develop an optimization model to assess the economic potential of dedicated energy crops when profit maximizing farmers allocate croplands of varying quality toward biomass in response to multi year contracts we evaluate the economic competitiveness of perennial grasses with traditional commodity crops in a case study of switchgrass production in tennessee assuming short term contracts we consider the importance of payment structure land quality energy crop yield and projected commodity crop returns on a farmer s decision to accept a contract for biomass production we find that a wholesale contract in which the farmer is guaranteed a price per unit biomass is most effective on the highest quality of land while a contract in which the farmer is guaranteed a price per acre is most effective on lower quality land from the biorefinery perspective a wholesale contract is most effective for short term contracts while an acreage contract is most effective for long term contracts breakeven pricing will only secure feedstock from farmers who produce commodity crops with unfavorable price outlooks on lower quality land therefore the contract price must include a premium in order to compete for space in the crop mix the yield profile of energy crops has a significant effect on the terms at which short term contracts will be accepted and land allocated toward feedstock production the extent to which energy crop yields observed in field trials can be maintained at commercial scale also has a substantial effect on the scale at which farmers would be willing to participate in energy crop production

property rights regimes in complex fishery management systems a choice experiment application the tonle sap wetland fishery was previously divided into 3 different management zones for conservation open access fishing and private fishing rights to the private fishing zone involved auctions for exclusive rights to temporarily designated plots this paper aims to explore the auction based system by investigating how this fishery management system affects different groups of small scale fishermen and how different characteristics of the fishing lots affect the bidding a choice experiment approach was used to model fishermen s choices in a hypothetical auction market by offering fishermen the choice between purchasing different potential fishing lots and a no purchase option implying fishing only in the communal fishing grounds the preferred latent class model with two segments of fishermen showed that the bidding behavior of the more privileged group out competes the other group irrespective of the lot characteristics this result suggests that it is unlikely that the redesign of the auction system itself would be an effective way of securing access to fishing resources for the two observed groups of fishermen this implies that open access fishing grounds and or other regulations may also be needed in future management as they serve an important role for the poorer segments

augmenting the world bank s estimates ireland s genuine savings through boom and bust abstract the world bank computes estimates of genuine savings gs a leading indicator of sustainable development for most countries a well established literature has called for methodological enhancement this paper presents augmented estimates of irish gs throughout a period of unprecedented economic expansion and decline 1990 2016 a time series constructed predominantly from national sources includes the most comprehensive coverage of pollutants in the literature surveyed we apply a novel method to aid the property rights designation assessment required for transboundary pollutant accounting in sharp contrast to the world bank s estimates our findings suggest that a modern developed economy can exhibit signs of unsustainability furthermore extended environmental damages drive these results suggesting expanded country specific gs may diverge considerably from the world bank s estimates we find rapid economic development and rapid declines in environmental damages can occur concurrently and on the transition away from an unsustainable path

enhanced models and improved solution for competitive biofuel supply chain design under land use constraints abstract this paper studies the effect of government regulation on farmland use to balance food and energy production in a competitive biofuel supply chain design framework we propose a stackelberg nash game model with a direct land use constraint that captures farmland food and fuel market equilibrium to provide farmers with incentives to comply with the land use regulation we implement the land use constraint through a cap and trade mechanism which we show attains equivalent land use patterns we further prove the existence of optimal solutions of the two equivalent discretely constrained mathematical program with equilibrium constraints dc mpec models two adaptive relax and tighten schemes integrality and lagrangian duality based relaxation are proposed to handle the binary variables in a mixed integer formulation of the models the proposed methodology is tested in a case study for the state of illinois the computational results demonstrate the superiority of our customized algorithms to publicly available solvers for solving problems with realistic sizes finally the efficiency of the cap and trade mechanism is demonstrated through comparisons of scenarios with and without regulation as well as a sensitivity analysis on the cap and trade level the cap and trade policy is found to effectively reduce biomass farmland use and profits of the biofuel industry it may have different impacts on social welfare depending on problem settings and market parameters cap and trade levels also affect system behavior and thus should be carefully selected

measuring sustainability a time series of alternative indicators for scotland this paper presents results from a time series analysis of seven alternative measures of sustainability for scotland the measures chosen are green net national product genuine savings ecological footprint environmental space net primary productivity the index of sustainable economic welfare and the genuine progress indicator these are all measures at the national or macro level we note arguments in the literature that no one single measure of sustainability is likely to be sufficient however very different messages concerning the sustainability of scotland over the period in question 1980 1993 emerge from these measures chosen we also argue that different indicators provide different insights for policy making

uncertainty in the demand for money during hyperinflation much recent empirical work on hyperinflation has centered on the direct and indirect effects of uncertainty on the demand for money we test the hypothesis originally put forward by klein that uncertainty positively affects the demand for real balances a variant of cagan s demand for money function is utilized and operational measures of uncertainty are derived by fitting autoregressive integrated moving average models to the inflation series for each of three hyperinflation nations we find that the most reasonable measures of variation do not significantly enter the money demand function for any of the three hyperinflations studied

biomass production from the u s forest and agriculture sectors in support of a renewable electricity standard production of renewable energy from biomass has been promoted as means to improve greenhouse gas balance in energy production improve energy security and provide jobs and income however uncertainties remain as to how the agriculture and forest sectors might jointly respond to increased demand for bioelectricity feedstocks and the potential environmental consequences of increased biomass production we use an economic model to examine how the agriculture and forest sectors might combine to respond to increased demands for bioelectricity under simulated future nationallevel renewable electricity standards both sectors are projected to contribute biomass although energy crops like switchgrass produced on agriculture land are projected to be the primary feedstocks at the highest targets for bioelectricity production we project increased conversion of forest to agriculture land in support of agriculture biomass production although land conversion takes place in response to renewable electricity mandates we project only minor increases in forest and agriculture emissions similarly crop prices were projected to generally be stable in the face of increased bioelectricity demand and displacement of traditional agriculture crops

a joint latent class model combining likert scale preference statements with choice data to harvest preference heterogeneity in addition to choice questions revealed and stated choices preference surveys typically include other questions that provide information about preferences preference statement data include questions on the importance of different attributes of a good or the extent of agreement with a particular statement the intent of this paper is to model and jointly estimate preference heterogeneity using stated preference choice data and preference statement data the starting point for this analysis is the belief that the individual has preferences and both his her choices and preference statements are manifestations of those preferences our modeling contribution is linking the choice data and preference statement data in a latent class framework estimation is straightforward using the e m algorithm even though our model has hundreds of preference parameters our estimates demonstrate that 1 within a preference class the importance anglers associate with different green bay site characteristics is in accordance with their responses to the preference statements 2 estimated across class utility parameters for fishing green bay are affected by the preference statement data 3 estimated across class preference statement response probabilities are affected by the inclusion of the choice data and 4 both data sets influence the number of classes and the probability of belonging to a class as a function of the individual s type

depreciation patterns for agricultural machinery a flexible functional form model is used to estimate remaining value equations for eleven major types of farm machinery data used in estimation were obtained from ten years of machinery auctions remaining values were found to be influenced by machinery condition use manufacturer and age macroeconomic variables were significant explanatory variables for most types of machinery estimated depreciation patterns varied by machinery type demonstrating the need for updated machinery specific remaining value equations reduced form equations are presented for use in applied economic analysis

recreation demand models with taste differences over people we estimate random parameter logit models of anglers choice of fishing site the models generalize logit by allowing coefficients to vary randomly over anglers rather than being fixed the models do not exhibit the restrictive independence from irrelevant alternatives property of logit and can represent any substitution pattern estimation explicitly accounts for the fact that the variation in coefficients over anglers induces correlation in unobserved utility over trips by the same angler willingness to pay for improved fish stock and the value to anglers of specific sites are calculated from the models and compared with the estimates obtained from a standard logit model