The Life Satisfaction Approach to Environmental Valuation

In many countries environmental policies and regulations are implemented to improve environmental quality and thus individuals’ well-being. However, how do individuals value the environment? In this paper, we review the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) representing a new non-market valuation technique. The LSA builds on the recent development of subjective well-being research in economics and takes measures of reported life satisfaction as an empirical approximation to individual welfare. Micro-econometric life satisfaction functions are estimated taking into account environmental conditions along with income and other covariates. The estimated coefficients for the environmental good and income can then be used to calculate the implicit willingness-to-pay for the environmental good.life satisfaction approach, subjective well-being, non-market valuation, cost-benefit analysis, air pollution

Testing Optimal Punishment Mechanisms under Price Regulation: the Case of the Retail Market for Gasoline

We analyse the effects of a price floor on price wars (or deep price cuts) in the retail market for gasoline. Bertrand supergame oligopoly models predict that price wars should last longer in the presence of price floors. In 1996, the introduction of a price floor in the Quebec retail market for gasoline serves as a natural experiment with which to test this prediction. We use a Markov Switching Model with two latent states to simultaneously identify the periods of price-collusion/price-war and estimate the parameters characterizing each state. Results support the prediction that price floors reduce the intensity of price wars but increase their expected duration.price regulation, oligopoly supergame, Markov switching model, gasoline

The Life Satisfaction Approach to Environmental Valuation

In many countries environmental policies and regulations are implemented to improve environmental quality and thus individuals’ well-being. However, how do individuals value the environment? In this paper, we review the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) representing a new non-market valuation technique. The LSA builds on the recent development of subjective well-being research in economics and takes measures of reported life satisfaction as an empirical approximation to individual welfare. Micro-econometric life satisfaction functions are estimated taking into account environmental conditions along with income and other covariates. The estimated coefficients for the environmental good and income can then be used to calculate the implicit willingness-to-pay for the environmental good.life satisfaction approach, subjective well-being, non-market valuation, costbenefit analysis, air pollution

The Life Satisfaction Approach to Environmental Valuation

In many countries environmental policies and regulations are implemented to improve environmental quality and thus individuals' well-being. However, how do individuals value the environment? In this paper, we review the Life Satisfaction Approach (LSA) representing a new non-market valuation technique. The LSA builds on the recent development of subjective well-being research in economics and takes measures of reported life satisfaction as an empirical approximation to individual welfare. Micro-econometric life satisfaction functions are estimated taking into account environmental conditions along with income and other covariates. The estimated coefficients for the environmental good and income can then be used to calculate the implicit willingness-to-pay for the environmental good.life satisfaction approach, subjective well-being, non-market valuation, cost-benefit analysis, air pollution

Testing Optimal Punishment Mechanisms Under Price Regulation: the Case of the Retail Market for Gasoline

We analyse the effects of a price floor on price wars in the retail market for gasoline. Our theoretical model assumes a Bertrand oligopoly supergame in which firms initially collude by charging the monopolistic price. Once firms detect a deviation from this strategy, they switch to a lower price for a punishment phase (a "price war" before returning to collusive prices. In 1996, the introduction of a price floor regulation in the Quebec retail market for gasoline serves as a natural experiment with which to test our model. We use a Markov Switching Model with two latent states to simultaneously identify the periods of price-collusion/price-war and estimate the parameters characterizing each state. Results show that the introduction of the price floor reduces the intensity of price wars but raises their expected duration. Nous analysons les effets de la présence d'un prix plancher dans le marché de la vente au détail de l'essence. D'un point de vue théorique, nous supposons un modèle à la Bertrand où au départ les firmes font implicitement collusion en demandant le prix de monopole. Lorsqu'une firme dévie de cette stratégie, les firmes concurrentes modifient également leur stratégie en punissant la firme déviante par des prix plus bas (guerre de prix) avant de retourner au prix de collusion. L'introduction d'une réglementation de type prix plancher dans le marché de la vente au détail de l'essence au Québec en 1996 procure une expérience naturelle pour tester le modèle théorique. Nous utilisons un modèle de type «Markov Switching» avec deux états latents afin d'identifier simultanément les périodes de prix collusifs et de guerres de prix et d'estimer les paramètres caractérisant chacun de ces états. Les résultats montrent que l'introduction d'un prix plancher réduit l'intensité des guerres de prix mais accroît leur durée anticipée.price regulation, oligopoly supergame, Markov switching model, gasoline prices, réglementation des prix, jeu à la Bertrand, modèle de Markov, prix de l'essence

The Life Satisfaction Approach to Environmental Valuation

The present paper examines the joint effect of fixed-term employment and work organization on job satisfaction using individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel GSOEP). Specifically, we analyze whether workers who are heterogeneous in terms of the type of working contract (fixed-term vs. permanent) do also differ with regard to job satisfaction, when they perform under comparable work organizational conditions. Such information would be quite valuable for employers, because they can learn about the responsiveness of heterogeneous workers to innovative work organizational practices. For this purpose, we at first estimate a linear fixed effects model, thereby controlling for unobserved time-constant characteristics. In a second step, we account for potential remaining endogeneity by combining the fixed effects approach with a two-stage estimation strategy. Our empirical results show that in terms of job satisfaction fixed-term workers and their permanent counterparts respond differently to a number of organizational practices including task diversity, employee involvement, social relations at work, general working conditions, and career prospects. The results may be used by employers to improve their concept of diversity management and specifically the job design of heterogeneous workers. �

Calculating Tragedy: Assessing the Costs of Terrorism

The trends and consequences of terrorist activities are often captured by counting the number of incidents and casualties. More recently, the effects of terrorist acts on various aspects of the economy have been analyzed. These costs are surveyed and put in perspective. As economic consequences are only a part of the overall costs of terrorism, possible approaches for estimating the utility losses of the people affected are discussed. Results using the life satisfaction approach, in which individual utility is approximated by self-reported subjective well-being, suggest that people’s utility losses may far exceed the purely economic consequences.terrorism, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, utility loss

Cloning Entangled Qubits to Scales One Can See

By amplifying photonic qubits it is possible to produce states that contain enough photons to be seen with a human eye, potentially bringing quantum effects to macroscopic scales [1]. In this paper we theoretically study quantum states obtained by amplifying one side of an entangled photon pair with different types of optical cloning machines for photonic qubits. We propose a detection scheme that involves lossy threshold detectors (such as human eye) on the amplified side and conventional photon detectors on the other side. We show that correlations obtained with such coarse-grained measurements prove the entanglement of the initial photon pair and do not prove the entanglement of the amplified state. We emphasize the importance of the detection loophole in Bell violation experiments by giving a simple preparation technique for separable states that violate a Bell inequality without closing this loophole. Finally we analyze the genuine entanglement of the amplified states and its robustness to losses before, during and after amplification.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure