Combining ecological and recreational aspects in national park management: A choice experiment application

Increasing pressure to diversify development of national parks emphasizes the need for new and relevant information for park management decisions. In this paper, we use choice experiment to value different tradeoffs that evolved in park development scenarios. Specifically, we examine which kind of development profiles are worth considering and which paths not to follow. We focus on biodiversity and recreational services provided by Oulanka National Park in Finland, which represents a popular recreation site attracting a large number of visitors. The increase of biodiversity was the most highly valued feature by the respondent national park visitors. Thus, our results show that the protection of biodiversity and recreational and tourism use of national parks can cause conflicting welfare effects if managed in inappropriate ways. Increasing the number of visitors, expanding present resting places, constructing new resting places and an intense increase in information boards, especially if combined with shrinking biodiversity, are welfare reducing managerial actions in national parks.     

The bivariate GARCH approach to investigating the relation between stock returns,trading volume,and return volatility

We use a bivariate GJR-GARCH model to investigate simultaneously the contemporaneous and causal relations between trading volume and stock returns and the causal relation between trading volume and return volatility in a one-step estimation procedure, which leads to the more efficient estimates and is more consistent with finance theory. We apply our approach to ten Asian stock markets: Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Our major findings are as follows. First, the contemporaneous relation between stock returns and trading volume and the causal relation from stock returns and trading volume are significant and robust across all sample stock markets. Second, there is a positive bi-directional causality between stock returns and trading volume in Taiwan and China and that between trading volume and return volatility in Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Third, there exists a positive contemporaneous relation between trading volume and return volatility in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, China, Indonesia, and Thailand, but a negative one in Japan and Taiwan. Fourth, we find a significant asymmetric effect on return and volume volatilities in all sample countries and in Korea and Thailand, respectively.     

On the Asymmetry of the Vagueness Band in Willingness to Pay Answers

The NOAA panel for Contingent Valuation opened up the question of the possibility of using trichotomous choice discrete formats in CV studies. In this paper we show how the trichotomous choice format can be used for testing the successfulness of the project definition in the questionnaire. We shall define the vagueness band around the true outcome of the project to be valued and we allow it to be asymmetric. It is shown how this asymmetry can be modelled and estimated. We also show how these new models are generalisations of ordinary ordered probit/logit models.     

Who is the more overconfident trader? Individual vs. institutional investors

Guided by the Gervais and Odean (2001) overconfident trading hypothesis, we comprehensively investigate the trading behavior of individual vs. institutional investors in Taiwan in an attempt to identify who is the more overconfident trader. Conditional on the various states of the market, on market volatility, and on the risk level of the securities they trade, we find that both individual and institutional investors trade more aggressively following market gains in bull markets, in up-market states, in up-momentum market states, and in low-volatility market states and that only individual investors trade more in riskier securities following market gains. More importantly, we find that individual investors trade more aggressively following market gains in the three conditional states of the market and in high-volatility market states than institutional investors. Also, individual investors trade more in relatively riskier securities following gains than institutional investors. These findings provide evidence that individual investors are more overconfident traders than institutional investors.     

Promotion of Market Access for Renewable Energy in the Nordic Power Markets

This study investigates how renewable targets for the Nordic power market might be achieved at the lowest costs. The instruments investigated are fixed Feed-In Tariff, economically sound premium based Feed-In Tariff and shadow-prices for CO₂ emissions. We utilize a Real-Time Price based simulation model in the analysis. We show that even with strong assumptions regarding the Emission Permit Price the targeted level of wind power is not reached without Feed-In Tariffs. Emission Trading produces the lowest total emissions but with the highest total costs. From the studied instruments the most cost-efficient way to reach the targets for wind energy market shares is the premium based Feed-In Tariff. This tariff is also the most cost-efficient way to reduce CO₂ emissions.     

Unobserved preferences and dynamic platform pricing under positive network externality

NETNOMICS: Economic Research and Electronic Networking - We study the dynamic optimization of platform pricing in industries with positive direct network externalities. The utility of the network...     

Consumer Choice Behavior and Electronic Shopping Systems – A Theoretical Note

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of alternative approaches in modeling consumer choice behavior with respect to making purchases either in the traditional manner or using an electronic shopping system. We concentrate on the effects of two specific features: the amount of time spent on shopping and the shopping experience. We consider a simple two-good situation in which one good is a composite good that consists of all goods purchased electronically, and the other is the composite of all goods purchased in a traditional manner. The models suggest that both time saved and an increase in shopping experience related to Web-based shopping will lead to increased purchasing at a Web shop.     

Some notes on trichotomous choice discrete valuation

For some respondents, the bid offered by the dichotomous choice format used in the discrete choice technique can in fact be the true optimum. In this case the correct answer is neither yes or no, but indifferent. We shall show results from a trichotomous choice format and analyse whether it produces welfare measures with narrower confidence intervals than the dichotomous technique. Another well known problem in contingent valuation (CV) studies is that the volume of the good to be purchased from hypothetical markets is not, in many cases, defined in precise terms. We show how the trichotomous choice technique can be used to test for possible vagueness in the volume of the project to be valued.