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on Discrete Choice Models |
| By: | Sophie Clot; Charlotte Stanton |
| Abstract: | Farmers are necessary agents in global efforts to conserve the environment now that croplands and pastures together constitute the largest terrestrial system on Earth – covering some 48% of (ice-free) land surface. Whereas standard economic models predict that farmers will participate in conservation programs so long as they are profitable, empirical findings from behavioral economics point to a number of normally unobservable preferences that may influence the decision-making process. This study tests whether heterogeneity in behavioral preferences correlates with decisions to participate in Payments for Environmental Services (PES) programs. We elicit individual trust and time preferences using incentivized choice experiments and link resulting measures to PES enrollment and household survey data in Uganda. We find that farmers who exhibit present-biased preferences – those who show a particular desire for proximate gains – are 44.1% more likely to self-select into PES than those who show time-consistent or future-biased preferences. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lam:wpaper:14-03&r=dcm |
| By: | Turner, Robert (Department of Economics, Colgate University); Willmarth, Blake (Department of Economics, Colgate University) |
| Abstract: | We present the results of a new, tournament-style design of a contingent choice survey about management options at North Cascades National Park (NCNP). In our tournament-style survey, each respondent explicitly ranks several sets of scenarios and in addition several other rankings are implicit. Including the implicit rankings does not change our findings much, suggesting that the tournament-style format can add usefully to the data collected by a survey. We find strong evidence of nonuse values for both cultural and natural resource protection; indeed, nonuse values seem to dominate preferences even for those who have visited NCNP. We further find that respondents in general seem to value the protection of natural resources more than the protection of cultural resources, though both are valuable. |
| Keywords: | contingent choice, tournament, cultural protection, wilderness protection, national park, nonuse values |
| JEL: | C9 Q3 Q5 |
| Date: | 2014–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgt:wpaper:2014-01&r=dcm |
| By: | Fabrizio Durante; Ostap Okhrin; ; |
| Abstract: | Complex phenomena in environmental sciences can be conveniently represented by several inter-dependent random variables. In order to describe such situations, copula-based models have been studied during the last year. In this paper, we consider a novel family of bivariate copulas, called exchangeable Marshall copulas. Such copulas describe both positive and (upper) tail association between random variables. Specically, inference procedures for the family of exchangeable Marshall copulas are introduced, based on the estimation of their (univariate) generator. Moreover, the performance of the proposed methodologies is shown in a simulation study. Finally, an illustration describes how the proposed procedures can be useful in a hydrological application. |
| Keywords: | Copula, Kendall distribution, Marshall-Olkin distribution, Non-parametric Estimation, Risk Management |
| JEL: | C13 C14 |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2014-014&r=dcm |
| By: | Jean-Daniel Rinaudo (BRGM - Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)); Stéphanie Aulong (BRGM - Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)) |
| Abstract: | The use of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is increasingly advocated as a tool for supporting water planning decisions, in particular at the local (site) level. This paper questions whether CBA is relevant for evaluating groundwater management options at the scale of large regional aquifers. It highlights the difficulties related to estimating the cost of groundwater protection and remediation measures at the regional (water body) level. It also identifies methodological challenges in estimating the economic value of the benefits of groundwater protection. The paper is based on an original case study carried out on the upper Rhine valley aquifer in eastern France. The methodology deployed combines engineering approaches to assess the cost of remediation and economic methods (contingent valuation) to estimate the benefits associated with groundwater improvement. |
| Keywords: | Cost-benefit analysis; Groundwater remediation; Contingent valuation survey; Volatile organic compounds (VOC); Willingness to pay |
| Date: | 2013–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00934930&r=dcm |