A field experiment investigating age discrimination in four European labour markets

In a field experiment investigating age discrimination, pairs of men, aged 27 and 47, inquired about employment as waiters in towns across England, France, Germany and Spain. Statistically significant discrimination against the older waiter was found in all four countries, but it was considerably higher in France and Spain than in England and Germany.     

Which accessible travel products are people with disabilities willing to pay more? A choice experiment

Despite the rapidly increasing number of tourists with disabilities, which is known to have a strong nexus with senior travel market, tourism industry has paid little attention to the distinctive preferences of these tourists for accessible travel products. Using a sample of Koreans with mobility disabilities, this study aims to better understand how they make decisions to choose optimal accessible travel products. The results of the choice experiment indicate that respondents place the heaviest weight on the accessibility of accommodation facilities for their maximization of travel satisfaction. The results also suggest that tourists with disabilities show higher willingness-to-pay values on particular tour buses equipped with more accessibility devices. Based on study findings, this study provides several management implications that help tourism professionals develop appropriate accessible travel products for their clientele with disabilities.     

Are impatient farmers more risk-averse? Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Uganda

Based on data from a field-experiment in rural Uganda, we show that impatient farmers are more risk-averse than patient farmers. We relied on a simplified version of the Convex Time Budget (CTB) method to elicit farmers’ time preferences and on an independent method for eliciting their risk-preferences. We report two important findings. First, we show that our simplified CTB method applied to farmers from Uganda replicates the key findings of Andreoni and Sprenger’s lab experiments that involved student subjects. Second, we establish the existence of a negative correlation between risk tolerance and impatience, based on two independent measures.     

Valuation of ecosystem services provided by irrigated rice agriculture in Thailand: a choice experiment considering attribute nonattendance

This research investigates how the public of a middle‐income country, Thailand, values ecosystem services associated with irrigated rice agriculture using a choice experiment. The results show a significant willingness to pay for services such as drought mitigation, water quality and the environment and maintenance of rural lifestyles and rice landscapes. The iterative procedure developed to fully analyze the incidence of attribute nonattendance (ANA) improved the model fit when compared with a multinomial logit model or an ANA model with potentially only one attribute ignored at a time (ANA‐1). Moreover, the inferred probability of the class of respondents having attended all attributes was 45%, compared to 9% with ANA‐1 model. However, it also suggests that 55% of the respondents made their choices by considering only two of the five attributes. Finally, this research also suggests that failing to consider ANA does not change the public ranking of scenarios contrasted by the services they would provide but would overestimate the WTP for these scenarios.     

Assessing recreation carrying capacity of the environment attributes based on visitors’ willingness to pay

Recreation carrying capacity (RCC) is one of the most important indictors used in measuring the usage limits for the forest park resources. However, the consensus has not been reached with respect to the RCC’s content and its measuring metrics. In this paper, we attempt to establish a new RCC theoretical framework based on the demand theory of the tourism product characteristics. In the process, the choice experiment and orthogonal design methods are used in questionnaire designs and the conditional Logit model is used for parameter estimates. More than 700 park visitors are surveyed for data collection at the Shenyang National Forest park of Liaoning province in China. The primary park attributes being considered encompass vegetation, coverage, water quality, number of rubbish on the park trail path, admission fees, and congestion. The carrying capacity threshold for each specific attribute is identified.     

Money secrets: How does trade secret legal protection affect firm market value? Evidence from the uniform trade secret act

Research summary : We investigate the impact of trade secret legal protection on firm market value in the context of acquisitions. On one hand, market value may increase because trade secret assets become better protected from rivals. On the other hand, market value may decrease because trade secret protection reduces information about the target and its competitors available to potential buyers, increasing uncertainty about its value. Buyers will discount their offers in expectation of being compensated for riskier deals. Using a sample of private equity investments in the United States, we find that trade secret protection has a positive effect in industries with high mobility of knowledge workers, but a negative effect in industries with (1) high resource–value uncertainty and (2) high poor‐investment risk. Managerial summary : We argue that an increase in trade secret legal protection might not unequivocally benefit firm owners when selling their business. A stronger trade secret protection increases the market value of firms in industries with high workers' mobility, but it decreases the market value of firms in industries with uncertain resource value and/or high risk of poor‐acquisition investments. Based on the contingent effect of trade secret protection, companies may want to adjust their strategic decisions, including where to locate or relocate, based in part on whether they will derive benefits or suffer losses when trade secrets are better protected. Finally, our study should help policymakers understand more fully the economic impact of government policies associated with trade secrets. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Country of origin labeling for complex supply chains: the case for labeling the location of different supply chain links

We investigate the value of a country of origin label (COOL) that separately identifies the geographic location of different stages in a food product's supply chain. We estimate the willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) of U.S. consumers for a packaged cereal product where the key grain ingredient may be grown in one country and processed in a second country (multicountry supply chain) and compare it to equivalent products that have both stages located in a single country. We find consumer WTP for products with single‐country and multicountry supply chains are statistically different, meaning that simplifying a multicountry label by listing only the country where the ingredients are grown or only the country where the ingredients are processed can result in different consumer values. We also find that for countries with a poor quality reputation, consumers respond more negatively when that country has the “last touch” than when that country's involvement is limited to upstream supply chain links.     

Experimental evidence on the resilience of a cap & trade system for land consumption in Germany

The German government has committed to substantially limiting future land consumption. Among the most prominently discussed policy instruments is the implementation of a cap & trade system for land consumption, in which a limited amount of certificates is allocated to and traded by municipalities. Since these certificates would be a prerequisite for conducting building projects, this system is expected to reduce urban sprawl and foster the efficient allocation of land consumption projects. While previous empirical studies have supported these projections, the potential fragility of a cap & trade system in the case of macroeconomic shocks has not been considered. In three laboratory experiments, we simulate the impact of economic and budgetary crises within a cap & trade scheme for land consumption. We find that a market-based system succeeds in compensating macroeconomic disturbances with only minor welfare losses. Certificate prices in auctions and trading are somewhat more volatile before shocks, yet normalize afterwards. Trading volumes and the specifics of project realizations remain largely unaffected. Unrelated to the macroeconomic shocks, auction and market prices persistently diverge, leading to income redistributions to the state. Overall, our evidence supports the introduction of a market-based certificate scheme to reduce land consumption in Germany due to its resilience against potential shocks.     

Regulatory performance of audit tournaments and compliance observability

This paper examines the effectiveness of traditional regulatory schemes and newly emerging social information schemes for achieving compliance. Our experiment focuses on two stochastic audit schemes for enforcing regulatory compliance. In the Random Audit mechanism firms are randomly chosen for inspection. In the Tournament Audit mechanism the probability of inspection increases with the degree of estimated underreporting. To study the effects of social information, the experiment varies the observability of identity, output, and compliance decisions. Optimal output is theoretically independent of the auditing scheme, but equilibrium reporting is higher under the Tournament mechanism than Random auditing. Experimental findings are broadly consistent with the theoretical predictions for reporting, but deviate modestly for output. In particular, we find that average output is lower and reporting is higher in the Tournament treatment compared to the Random Audit treatment. At the individual level, a majority of participants misreported in most periods. Social observability does not affect output or reporting significantly in either of the audit treatments.     

Sustaining cooperation in social dilemmas: Comparison of centralized punishment institutions

This study investigates two centralized punishment institutions for a linear public goods game. These institutions require a certain contribution level and sanction under-contributing players. The two differ in who, among those who do not meet this requirement, receive sanctions. In one institution, all violators are sanctioned, and in the other, only the worst violator(s) is sanctioned. Theoretically, the public goods game of the latter institution yields contributions equal to or greater than that of the former institution with the same requirement and sanction level. The results of an experiment support this theoretical prediction. However, there is a discrepancy between the theory and laboratory observations in that the institution with the theoretically optimal requirement did not yield the highest profit.