RATIONED ACCESS AND WELFARE: CASE OF PUBLIC RESOURCE LOTTERIES

Pressures on natural resource stocks and habitats on public lands and waterways are resulting increasingly in the rationing of public access by lottery. Upon accounting for the uncertainties of random rationing, discrete choice models lend themselves to analyzing participation in public resource lotteries and estimating welfare changes. Key to the modeling is the estimation of individual-specific expected access-probabilities. In the application we model the discrete choices of more than 18,000 participants in a lottery system for harvest rights. Welfare estimates are obtained from simulated policy changes affecting individually and jointly the access probability and indirect utility.Public Economics,

Explaining Disparities between Actual and Hypothetical Stated Values: Further Investigation Using Meta-Analysis

Spurred by the need to account for non-market values in various policy applications, a lively and extended debate has surrounded the presence and magnitude of hypothetical bias in stated value studies (e.g., applications of the survey-based contingent valuation method). Using the rapidly accumulating set of comparison studies, List and Gallet (2001) conducted an initial meta-analysis of the experimental protocol that may be influencing the disparity between real and hypothetical values in stated value studies. We expand the original meta-analysis by using a significantly larger (29%) data set, including variables to account for referendum formats, certainty corrections, and cheap talk scripts.

Economic growth and environmental quality: a meta-analysis of environmental Kuznets curve studies

Meta-analysis is used to investigate systematic variation across Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) studies. Based on 588 observations, modeling results indicate that data characteristics, study methods, estimation techniques, and the chosen environmental quality degradation measure all significantly affect the absence or presence of the EKC, and any predicted income turning points (ITPs). With respect to anthropogenic activity-related greenhouse gases, the evidence does not support the presence of an EKC.environmental Kuznets curve

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

Value and Outcome Uncertainty as Explanations for the WTA vs WTP Disparity: Theory and Experimental Evidence

This paper contributes to the widespread discussion of the sources of the divergence between WTA and WTP values. The paper reports on theoretical and empirical investigations which show that value and outcome uncertainty offer an explanation for this disparity. Given a set of hypotheses generated by the theory, the paper investigates the disparity using an inducedvalue experimental laboratory setting. The incentive-compatible Becker-DeGroot-Marshak mechanism is employed to elicit the WTP and WTA values. Two conclusions can be drawn from the empirical results. First, the WTA - WTP difference is generally increasing in both value and outcome uncertainty. Second, a re-contracting option reduces the disparity when it arises from value uncertainty. Key Words: Experimental, Uncertainty, WTP-WTA disparity

POLICY CHANGES AND THE DEMAND FOR LOTTERY-RATIONED BIG GAME HUNTING LICENSES

Lotteries are commonly used to allocate big game hunting privileges. In this study, lottery demand and consumer surplus are modeled before and after policy changes designed to increase participation. The application is to New Mexico elk hunt lotteries. Given the volume and variety of hunts, we adopt a disaggregated and flexible count modeling approach. Two welfare measures are estimated: Marshallian surplus and a proposed measure that incorporates consumer uncertainty. The Marshallian measure produces smaller and slightly less precise estimates. However, regardless of the surplus measure examined, welfare increased significantly with the policy changes, while revenues changed by less than 1%.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Evaluating coasean bargaining experiments with meta-analysis

While the Coase Theorem has been a touchstone for understanding bargaining behavior, it has also been criticized for relying on unrealistic assumptions. In response, a line of experimental research analyzes bargaining behavior in laboratory settings. This paper uses meta-analysis to evaluate the Coasean bargaining literature by modeling the probability of an efficient bargain as a function of: (1) measures of transaction costs and related variables, and (2) measures of the social dimensions of a bargain. Results suggest that efficient solutions are more likely when explicit transaction costs do not exist, in the absence of a binding time limit, and when participants have perfect information on payoff schedules. Social dimension variables are found to have the potential to affect bargaining outcomes and are an important avenue for further research.Coase Theorem

CONTINGENT VALUATION OF RURAL TOURISM DEVELOPMENT WITH TESTS OF SCOPE AND MODE STABILITY

Contingent valuation is used to measure the social impacts of tourism in rural Oregon communities. Impacts are substantial, for example, annual household willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce traffic congestion is $186. Study features include tests of sensitivity to a change in scope, tests of stability across survey mode, and a thorough system of “no” –vote follow-up questions in a referendum format. While there is no evidence of scope effects (at the 0.05 level), results indicate that conclusions regarding sensitivity to scope may be dependent on the test used. WTP estimates are substantially less with the mail versus telephone survey mode.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

A Mixture Model of Consumers' Intended Purchase Decisions for Genetically Modified Foods

A finite probability mixture model is used to analyze the existence of multiple market segments for a pre-market good. The approach has at least two principal benefits. First, the model is capable of identifying likely market segments and their differentiating characteristics. Second, the model can be used to estimate the discount different consumer groups require to purchase the good. The model is illustrated using stated preference survey data collected on consumer responses to the potential introduction in Norway of bread made with genetically modified wheat.