Estimating Willingness to Pay for Improved Water Quality in the Presence of Item Nonresponse Bias

This article deals with the problem of item nonresponse in contingent valuation surveys using a payment-card method, by applying a grouped-data sample-selection estimation technique that is capable of imputing the missing values conditional upon a respondent's decision to answer a willingness-to-pay question. The advantage of the technique lies in its ability to utilize all of the information in the sample, permitting a more efficient estimation in the presence of item nonresponse bias. The major determinants of willingness to pay appear to be household income, number of children, education, perception of existing water quality, and identification with environmental issues.     

The economic costs of biological predation

This paper developes a bioeconomic model to analyse the economic losses from the reduced harvesting of prey species resulting from an increase in the stock of a natural predator. Examples of large mammals creating economic damage are whales and African elephants. The economic losses depend critically on the actual management of the prey stock, although the three measures we develop are equal when the stock is managed so as to maximize the sustained economic rent from the prey species. Predation losses are illustrated by the case of the Northeastern Atlantic Minke whale, where the estimate of the average predation cost per whale in 1991–1992 is between $US 1780 and $US 2370, using Norwegian cost and earnings data. A ten percent stock increase is estimated to cause a loss of almost $US 19 million to the fishers of the prey species. If half of this cost were assigned to Norway it would be equivalent to 2.8 and 6.7 percent of the gross profits of the Norwegian cod and herring fisheries, respectively.     

Exchange rate pass-through in Canadian manufacturing: its direct and indirect components

Changes in the exchange rate have direct and indirect effects on the prices of domestically produced goods and imports in the domestic market. The direct effects originate with the impact of the exchange rate on the marginal cost of imports; the indirect effects, with its impact on the price of materials used by domestic producers and hence on their marginal costs. Direct and indirect exchange rate pass-through elasticities are estimated for 37 Canadian manufacturing industries and their determinants are examined in a cross-section analysis. It is found that the direct and indirect elasticities are approximately equal in size for domestic goods, while the direct effect is dominant for imports. For a small number of industries, the net result of the direct and indirect effects is that a depreciation of the domestic currency increases the competitiveness of imports, contrary to conventional analysis. Important determinants of the direct (indirect) elasticities are the import share and non-tariff barriers (the responsiveness of domestic costs to changes in the exchange rate, and concentration).     

Productivity change in Canadian mining 1957–1979

This paper calculates multifactor productivity trends in seven Canadian mining industries and relates changes in productivity to various factors, including changes in output and factor prices and the decline in the quality of the ore being mined. It is found that productivity decline in mining has been pronounced and tended to predate that of manufacturing by several years. There are indications that the most important factors in the decline have been the fall in mineral grade, contraction of output, increases in interest rates and an apparent decline in the rate of technical innovation.     

Market structure and price adjustment in Canadian manufacturing industries

This study examines the determinants of the speed of price adjustment for a broad sample of Canadian manufacturing industries using a two-stage procedure. The first stage consists of estimating time series price equations which yield measures of the industry rates of price adjustment. The second stage makes use of a cross-section analyssi to examine how the estimated adjustment speeds are related to industry structure. The results indicate that the rate of price adjustment varies directly with concentration, and inversely with the degree of product differentiation and the length of the selling lag.     

Exchange rate pass-through and its determinants in Canadian manufacturing industries

In this paper the pass-through of exchange rate changes into the real prices of domestically produced and imported goods in Canadian manufacturing industries is examined through industry estimates of the pass-through elasticities and a cross-section analysis of their determinants. We find that the domestic pass-through elasticity increases with the effect of the exchange rate on domestic costs of production, the export share, the elasticity of substitution between imports and domestic goods, and the domestic advertising intensity. The import elasticity increases with the elasticity of substitution and the rate of price protection and decreases with advertising intensity. JEL Classification: L60, F14
Les effets de changements dans le taux de change sur les prix réels dans les industries manufacturières canadiennes. Ce mémoire examine les effets des changements dans le taux de change sur les prix réels des biens produits au Canada ou importés pour les industries manufacturières canadiennes en construisant des estimés par secteur des élasticités de transfert et en examinant leurs déterminants dans une analyse trasnversale. On montre que l'élasticité de transfert domestique s'accroît à proportion que l'effet du taux de change sur les coûts internes de production, la part des exportations, l'élasticité de substitution entre importations et biens domestiques, et l'intensité de publicité au plan interne sont importants. L'élasticité des importations s'accroît avec l'élasticité de substitution et le taux de protection des prix, et décroît avec le niveau d'intensité de la publicité.     

Optimal control of a multi-cohort fishery

Models of optimal renewable resource exploitation typically assume an equation for total population growth over time irrespective of the age distribution of the stock. By means of the theory of parametric optimal control, this paper outlines a model of a fishery with population varying in both age and time. Instead of an optimal steady-state harvest we derive an optimal harvest age distribution with lower utilization of younger members of the population.     

Determinants of domestic and import prices in Canadian manufacturing industries

This paper examines the determinants of the prices of domestic and imported goods in the domestic market using time-series data for a broad sample of Canadian manufacturing industries. It is found that the costs of both goods are the fundamental determinants of their prices, that the pass-through of costs into prices depends on the levels of domestic and import costs, real income per capita and concentration, and that factors which increase the sensitivity of both prices to domestic costs also reduce their sensitivity to import costs. In addition, it appears that the way in which prices are determined differs between industries with low versus high advertising-sales ratios.     

Efficiency versus collusion: a reformulation of the Weiss test

The weiss test has been used to discriminate between the efficiency and collusion hypotheses. Using a conventional oligopoly model, we show that the test is valid for the former hypothesis but not the latter. Contrary to recent emperical studies, we find that a negative coefficient on concentration in profitability equations does not refute the collusion hypothesis. In fact, this finding supports the hypothesis if the sample is dominated by small firms.