Charging the polluters: A pricing model for road and railway noise

This study outlines a method to estimate the short run marginal cost (SRMC) for road and railway noise. It is based on standardized calculation methods for total noise levels and monetary cost estimates from well established evaluation methods. Here official calculation methods and monetary values are used for Sweden, but the estimation method for the SRMC outlined can be directly applied using other standardized noise calculation methods and monetary values. This implies that the current knowledge regarding the calculation of total noise levels and the evaluation of the social cost of noise can be extended to estimate the marginal effect as well. This is an important finding since it enables policy makers to price noise externalities in an appropriate way. Several sensitivity tests run for the SRMC show that: (i) increasing the total traffic on the infrastructure has only a minor influence, (ii) estimates are quite sensitive to the number of exposed individuals, and (iii) to the monetary values used. Hence, benefits transfer, i.e. using monetary values elicited based on road noise for railway noise, should be done with caution or not at all. Results also show that the use of quiet technology can have a significant effect on the SRMC. The fact that this model is able to differentiate not only modes of transport, but also vehicles and even technologies is an important finding. It is essential that the noise charges give the operators the right incentives to choose their optimal allocation.Externalities; Marginal cost; Noise; Railway; Road

Outsourcing Public Services: Ownership, Competition, Quality and Contracting

We survey the literature on the effects of public sector outsourcing. Guided by theory, we systematically arrange services according to the type and magnitude of their contractibility problems. Taken as a whole, the empirical literature indicates that public sector outsourcing generally reduces costs without hurting quality. This is clearly the case for “perfectly contractible services” like garbage collection, but outsourcing often seems to work reasonably well also for some services with more difficult contracting problems, e.g. fire protection and prisons. Outsourcing seems to be more problematic for credence goods, with residential youth care as the prime example. In contrast to previous reviews, we conclude that ownership and competition appear to be about equally important for the consequences of public sector outsourcing.Outsourcing; Contracts; Tendering; Ownership; Competition; Quality

Swedish Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Food Safety - a Contingent Valuation Study on Salmonella Risk

This paper examines the value to Swedish citizens of reducing the risk for salmonella bacteria in chicken filet. The contingent valuation (CV) study is based on the results of a postal questionnaire that was distributed to 2 000 randomly selected Swedish citizens aged 18-74. The valuation format used is a stated preference double bounded dichotomous choice. We employ the non-parametric Turnbull Lower Bound method in combination with Monte Carlo simulations to obtain lower bound estimates of the mean and median values of expected willingness-to-pay (WTP) for reducing the risk for salmonellosis, as well as values of a statistical case (VSC) and a statistical life (VSL). We find a VSC of between SEK 121 045 (110 297–131 814) and SEK 182 966 (167 915–197 896) depending on the format used (values in parentheses constitute a 90 percent confidence interval). VSL values of SEK 13.3 million and 48.3 million are estimated using different formats, but neither estimation is statistically significant. Since this is the first Swedish study on WTP for food safety, mean and median values of VSL and VSC cannot be directly compared with previous results, but the values obtained are in line with comparable Swedish studies on WTP for traffic safety as well as with international studies related to food safety. We do not find any strong linkage between WTP and income, age or gender. Scale sensitivity seems to depend on which model is chosen, while household size, risk perception ability and perceived Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY:s) lost seem to be strong predictors of WTP.Contingent valuation; Food safety; Health risk; Salmonellosis

The Singular Set of Higher Dimensional Unstable Obstacle Type Problems

In this paper we will investigate the singular points of the following unstable free boundary problem: {equation}\label{Eq} \Delta u= -\chi_{\{u>0\}} \quad\quad\textrm{in} B_1(0) {equation} where $\chi_{\{u>0\}}$ is the characteristic function of the set $\{u>0\}$