Willingness to Pay Estimation When Protest Beliefs are not Separable from the Public Good Definition

Public good attributes that are correlated with protest beliefs but not separable from the good's value, would affect stated preference estimates of the WTP for the public good. Survey data collected to value a program to prevent ecosystem losses on Nevada rangelands, where the majority of land is publicly owned and managed, reveal more than half of the respondents exhibiting some protest belief. Of these, about 60% voted 'yes' to some nonzero bid amount. By treating protest beliefs and opposition to the proposed program as separate concepts, we systematically analyze their determinants and impacts on WTP. In this framework, people with protest beliefs may or may not vote 'no' to all bids and people may, without being protesters, answer 'no' to all dollar amounts. Multinomial logit regression results suggest that factors motivating people to protest and/or oppose the proposed program are so diverse that a single model does not provide a good fit. We estimate nested models and conclude that different underlying processes determine WTP for "protesters" ($34.02) and "non-protesters" ($69.56).Stated preferences; Willingness to pay; Protest responses; Rangelands; Valuation of ecosystem services

Estimating Private Incentives for Wildfire Risk Mitigation: Determinants of Demands for Different Fire-Safe Actions

In this article we develop a general conceptual model of a property-owner’s decision to implement actions to protect his property against wildfire threat. Assuming a prospective-utility maximizing decision maker, we derive a system of demand functions for fire-safe actions that characterizes factors affecting individual decision making. We then empirically estimate the demands for various fire-safe actions functions using survey data of property owners facing a wildfire threat in Nevada. We find that the probability of individuals implementing some fire-safe action increases with value of the residence, previous experience with wildfire, the property being used as the primary residence, positive attitude towards wildfire management methods on public lands, and connectedness of community members. A lower probability of implementing fire-safe actions is found for those who value pristine nature and privacy that nature provides.Risk and Uncertainty,

Willingness to Pay Estimation When Protest Beliefs are not Separable from the Public Good Definition

Public good attributes that are correlated with protest beliefs but not separable from the good\u27s value, would affect stated preference estimates of the WTP for the public good. Survey data collected to value a program to prevent ecosystem losses on Nevada rangelands, where the majority of land is publicly owned and managed, reveal more than half of the respondents exhibiting some protest belief. Of these, about 60% voted \u27yes\u27 to some nonzero bid amount. By treating protest beliefs and opposition to the proposed program as separate concepts, we systematically analyze their determinants and impacts on WTP. In this framework, people with protest beliefs may or may not vote \u27no\u27 to all bids and people may, without being protesters, answer \u27no\u27 to all dollar amounts. Multinomial logit regression results suggest that factors motivating people to protest and/or oppose the proposed program are so diverse that a single model does not provide a good fit. We estimate nested models and conclude that different underlying processes determine WTP for protesters ($34.02) and non-protesters ($69.56)

Choosing to be a Citizen: The Time-Path of Citizenship in Australia

This article uses census data to examine the process of becoming a citizen in Australia, and examines differences in the process among major immigrant groups. Some immigrant groups, Mediterranean and Third World immigrants, have a much more rapid transition to citizenship than others. Northwestern Europeans begin more slowly, but catch up several decades later. Anglophone immigrants are altogether less likely to become citizens. The analysis further reveals that people who migrate as children and thus are educated in Australia decide to become citizens more quickly than adulthood immigrants. Indeed, some of them become citizens as children (if their parents did so then). Other measures of affiliation to Australia have ambiguous effects. Social class is unrelated to the decision to become a citizen. </jats:p

Education Legitimates Income Inequality: Normative Beliefs in Early Post-Communist and Market-oriented Nations

Using data from large, representative national samples in in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Australia, Finland, and the Netherlands, we examine moral norms about just rewards for education. Comparing these norms in East Central Europe shortly after Communism-where the dominant ideology was egalitarian, schooling free, rewards to education modest, and alternative investments absent-and in market-oriented societies where the opposite held, provides insight into the influence of institutional arrangements on moral norms. We find that the publics in all these countries favor large rewards for education (which legitimates substantial income inequality), showing that these moral norms are resilient to institutional arrangements. These results align with Aristotle’s claim that people believe job performance merits reward because it makes valuable contributions. They undermine alternative theories: credentialism, radical egalitarianism, and the hegemonic power of dominant political elites. These results also undermine economists’ human capital arguments insofar as they are seen as a moral justification for income inequality