Social Dilemmas in Nature-Based Tourism Depend on Social Value Orientations

Nature-based tourism (NBT) is vulnerable to a rapid increase in visitors because natural resources are often open access. Market failure caused by over-exploitation of natural resources is an example of social dilemmas in common-pool resource systems. Game theory, which describes people’s decision making under conflicts, has been applied to the analysis of social dilemmas in NBT. However, previous studies use non-cooperative games assuming individualistic players and discuss the emergence of social dilemmas only in a limited situation. Here, we demonstrate, by developing a two-player non-cooperative game of wildlife viewing, that the traditional game-theoretic approach fails to find social dilemmas. By analysing the competition between tour operators (players) with different social value orientations (SVOs), we found that concentration of tours becomes a Pareto-inefficient Nash equilibrium (PINE) when both players are competitive. Whether the wildlife-viewing market is a Prisoner’s dilemma depends on players’ SVOs. Furthermore, we found that fair punishment on competitive players promotes rather than suppresses the emergence of PINE. Our results suggest that the diversity of SVOs is an essential factor in understanding social dilemmas in NBT

Estimating the hourly electricity profile of Japanese households – Coupling of engineering and statistical methods

AbstractUnderstanding the hourly electricity profile and the electricity consumption by each appliance is essential for encouraging energy-saving measures in the household sector. There are two methods for identifying energy consumption for households in existing studies: the engineering and the statistical methods. Both methods have strengths and limitations. In this study, we developed a hybrid method based on the statistical method by combining following three steps using knowledge of the engineering method; externalizing the electricity consumption for the refrigerator, adding the number of at-home-and-awake members as explanatory variables, and restricting appliance usage hours. The proposed hybrid method could adequately reproduce the total hourly electricity consumption and seasonal variation compared to the engineering method, and could decompose major appliances, some of which that were not disaggregated by the statistical method. For the quantitative analysis of the model improvement, we calculated Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) for each method with direct metering data. For most of appliances, RMSE and MAE of hybrid model were improved from 11% to 71% compared to the existing methods. The collection of more samples to increase the accuracy of the estimation and application to areas of low statistical data availability are future steps

Adapting global shared socio-economic pathways for national scenarios in Japan

A Correction to this article was published. This article has been updated.Shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) are alternative global development scenarios focused on the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. However, global SSPs would need revised versions for regional or local assessment, which is the so-called extended version, because global narratives may lack region-specific important drivers, national policy perspectives, and unification of data for each nation. Thus, it is necessary to construct scenarios that can be used for governments in response to the SSPs to reflect national and sub-national unique situations. This study presents national SSP scenarios, specifically focusing on Japan (hereafter, Japan SSPs), as well as a process for developing scenarios that qualitatively links to global SSPs. We document the descriptions of drivers and basic narratives of Japan SSPs coherent with global SSPs, based on workshops conducted by local researchers and governments. Moreover, we provide a common data set of population and GDP using the national scale. Japan SSPs emphasized population trends different from global SSPs and influencing factors, citizen participation, industrial development resulting from economic change, distribution, and inequality of sub-national population, among others. We selected data sets from existing population projections that have been widely used by Japanese researchers; the data show that the population and GDP of Japan SSPs are expected to be about 20-25% less than global SSPs by 2100

N-player mosquito net game: Individual and social rationality in the misuse of insecticide-treated nets

Many governmental and non-governmental organizations have distributed insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) to malaria endemic areas, which contributed to the reduction of malaria deaths. However, some people in malaria endemic areas used ITNs for alternative purposes such as fishery and agriculture. It is unclear why people threatened by malaria misuse ITNs. Here we develop a N-player mosquito net game, and theoretically show that the misuse of ITNs might be underpinned by individual and social rationality. In the mosquito net game, each player uses ITNs for malaria prevention or alternative purposes. The proper ITN use decreases the probability of malaria infection, while the improper ITN use increases the player's labor productivity. Each player's expected payoff is influenced by other players' strategies. We found that the misuse of ITNs can be a Pareto efficient Nash equilibrium. The maximum number of players using ITNs for malaria prevention is limited by insecticidal effectiveness of ITNs and extra income from ITN misuse. Furthermore, we found that players in a low-income community are attracted to the misuse of ITNs even if the probability of malaria infection is high. Introduction of a tax on ITN misuse was shown to be effective to motivate the players to use ITNs for malaria prevention. Our results demonstrate that understanding decision making of people in malaria endemic areas is essential to design more effective malaria control programs. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Impacts of demographic, meteorological, and economic changes on household CO2 emissions in the 47 prefectures of Japan

An understanding of the factors affecting household CO2 emissions is necessary for effective climate policies aimed at reducing emissions. We developed an empirical model of household CO2 emissions in the 47 prefectures of Japan and conducted a sensitivity analysis to evaluate the impacts of demographic, meteorological, and economic changes on emissions. Emissions are projected to increase with demographic changes by 2030, and to decrease with temperature increases during the twenty-first century. Carbon taxes on energy sources are projected have a limited effect on the reduction of emissions in the short term. The closure of nuclear power plants is projected to lead to a substantial increase in emissions

Cooperative Emissions Trading Game: International Permit Market Dominated by Buyers.

Rapid reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is required to mitigate disastrous impacts of climate change. The Kyoto Protocol introduced international emissions trading (IET) to accelerate the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The IET controls CO2 emissions through the allocation of marketable emission permits to sovereign countries. The costs for acquiring additional permits provide buyers with an incentive to reduce their CO2 emissions. However, permit price has declined to a low level during the first commitment period (CP1). The downward trend in permit price is attributed to deficiencies of the Kyoto Protocol: weak compliance enforcement, the generous allocation of permits to transition economies (hot air), and the withdrawal of the US. These deficiencies created a buyer's market dominated by price-making buyers. In this paper, I develop a coalitional game of the IET, and demonstrate that permit buyers have dominant bargaining power. In my model, called cooperative emissions trading (CET) game, a buyer purchases permits from sellers only if the buyer forms a coalition with the sellers. Permit price is determined by bargaining among the coalition members. I evaluated the demand-side and supply-side bargaining power (DBP and SBP) using Shapley value, and obtained the following results: (1) Permit price is given by the product of the buyer's willingness-to-pay and the SBP (= 1 - DBP). (2) The DBP is greater than or equal to the SBP. These results indicate that buyers can suppress permit price to low levels through bargaining. The deficiencies of the Kyoto Protocol enhance the DBP, and contribute to the demand-side dominance in the international permit market

Characteristic function of a multi-buyer CET game.

<p>The following parameters are assumed: <i>b</i> = 2, <i>s</i> = 1, ∣<i>C</i>₋₁∣ = 10, ∣<i>C</i>₋₂∣ = 10, <i>C</i>₁ = 10, <i>λ</i>₋₁ = 1, <i>λ</i>₋₂ = 2, <i>r</i>₋₁ = 5, and <i>r</i>₋₂ = 5. The participation of buyer −1 into the coalition {−2, 1} decreases the collective payoff. This characteristic function does not satisfy superadditivity.</p><p>Characteristic function of a multi-buyer CET game.</p

Stability indices (SIs) of single-buyer grand coalitions (SBGCs).

<p>Calculated from the data of <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0132272#pone.0132272.g001" target="_blank">Fig 1</a>.</p><p>Stability indices (SIs) of single-buyer grand coalitions (SBGCs).</p

Aggregate permit supply and demand in Annex B Parties, 2005–2012.

<p>Calculated from CO₂ emission data [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0132272#pone.0132272.ref024" target="_blank">24</a>] and the QELRC of the Kyoto Protocol [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0132272#pone.0132272.ref005" target="_blank">5</a>]. The US is not included.</p