Problems in valuing the benefits of biodiversity protection

This paper considers two problems in valuing the benefits of biodiversity protection. These are, firstly, that preferences for biodiversity protection may be lexicographic rather than utilitarian. The more individuals for whom this is true, the less is cost-benefit analysis validated as a means of decision making for biodiversity protection, since lexicographic preferences are incompatible with the Kaldor-Hicks Compensation Test. Secondly, people may be poorly informed about the meaning of biodiversity, complicating the use of contingent valuation as a means of measuring preservation benefits. This paper first discusses the meaning of biodiversity, and trends in diversity over time. We offer some empirical evidence with regard to lexicographic preferences; consider the implications of having poorly-informed consumers; and then report the results of a contingent valuation study of biodiversity protection with varying levels of information. We find that willingness to pay for biodiversity protection increases with the level of information provided.We thank David Pearce, participants at a seminar at University College London, and two referees for comments on earlier versions of this paper.     

Valuing environmental factors in cost-benefit analysis using data envelopment analysis

Environmental cost-benefit analysis (ECBA) is used for the social evaluation of investment projects and policies that involve significant environmental impacts. Economic valuation of environmental impacts forms one of the critical steps of ECBA. We develop a new method for this purpose, which does not require price estimation for environmental impacts using stated or revealed preference methods. Our approach is based on data envelopment analysis (DEA), which is modified to ECBA by using absolute shadow prices instead of relative prices. We also discuss how the method can be used for sensitive analysis in ECBA. We illustrate the method by means of a hypothetical numerical example.     

Intergenerational Altruism and the Environment

We construct an overlapping generations model of pollution externality in which individuals are altruistically linked to their offspring as in Barro (1974). It is shown that steady-state consumption may be a decreasing function of the intergenerational degree of altruism. Despite individuals' altruism, the competitive equilibrium is not optimal. We thus study the social optimum and show that it can be decentralized.
JEL classification: D 62; D 64; D 91     

Family Altruism and Incentives

This paper characterizes the pattern of intergenerational transfers that emerges in an altruistic model of the family when children's effort is explicitly made endogenous and parents have imperfect information on the stochastic income realizations of their children. It is shown that, if parents can credibly commit to a pattern of transfers, they will choose not to compensate children in bad outcomes as much as predicted by the standard (no uncertainty, no asymmetric information) dynastic model of the family. In this context, Ricardian equivalence holds whenever non‐negativity constraints are not binding.     

A cost-benefit analysis of the random assignment UK Employment Retention and Advancement Demonstration

This article presents a cost-benefit analysis of Britain’s Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) demonstration, which was evaluated through the first large-scale randomized control trial in the UK. ERA used a combination of job coaching and financial incentives in attempting to help long-term unemployed men and low-income lone parents sustain employment and progress in work once they were employed. Using both administrative and survey data, ERA’s effects on benefits and costs were estimated through impact analyses, which exploited the experimental design. The findings indicated that ERA was cost beneficial for long-term unemployed adult men, but not for lone parents. The key findings appear robust to sensitivity tests. Uncertainty, as implied by the SEs of the estimated impacts, was addressed through a Monte Carlo analysis, an approach seldom previously used in cost-benefit analyses of social programs.     

基于成本——效益分析的安徽农村生物沼气发展研究

生物沼气为生物质能源中最为普及的一种,由于其分散性、小型化和就地取材适合农村发展。文章运用成本——效益函数,通过将农村沼气发展具有代表性地区的实地调研情况与函数的理论前提进行对比分析后发现,发展大中型沼气项目更适合农村实际,从而提出下一阶段农村沼气的发展模式。     

Altruism,sociology and the history of economic thought

Abstract

This paper is organized in three stages. In the first part, I outline the evolution of the notion of altruism with its critical dimension of political economy by following the intellectual sequence from Auguste Comte to Pierre Bourdieu, through Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. In the second, I consider the forms of transaction to which these sociologists report altruism and its derivatives. In the last section, I examine recent developments on altruism as a result of developments on performativity on the one hand and market design on the other.     

Valuing the prevention of elder abuse

We develop a framework for valuing cases of serious elder abuse. We use the preferences of the elderly who are abused, the victims, to help identify: what offenses are of concern, the seriousness of any particular offense and the value of preventing any particular offense. The variable revealing the valuations is the victim’s willingness to prosecute in New York City police complaint reports. Using our framework we found that it took a loss of $38 462 in order to be classed as a serious financial offense. With this monetary magnitude as a benchmark we were able to value nonfinancial serious offenses at up to $50 000 per offense.     

Environmental Valuation – To Use or Not to Use? A Comparative Study of the United States and Europe

Valuation methods have been used for five main purposes in environmental decision-making. Cost–benefit analysis (CBA) of projects, CBA of new regulations, natural resource damage assessment, environmental costing, and environmental accounting. The relatively lower importance attached to economic efficiency in environmental decision-making in most European countries compared to the U.S.A., both legally and in practice, might account for our general finding that there are very few valuation studies in Europe which have served as a decisive basis for environmental policy and regulations. However, with EU's goal to establish environmentally adjusted national accounts and to apply CBA to environmental policy and regulations, time seems ripe for an increased use of valuation techniques in Europe.     

作为内生偏好的利他行为及其经济学意义

现代经济学与现代生物学对人性的看法相当一致,都把自利看作人类行为的基本前提。但来自桑塔费学派的最新研究证明,在人类进化的早期阶段,利他行为作为社会规范内部化的产物,在维持个人之间的合作劳动、有效提高族群生存竞争能力方面,具有不可替代的重要作用。我们在ESS(即“进化稳定策略”)基础上提出一个演化均衡模型,进一步解释了利他行为的进化优势以及合作剩余导致利他偏好内生的机制。     

Altruism, equity, and reciprocity in a gift-exchange experiment: an encompassing approach

Considerable experimental evidence suggests that non-pecuniary motives must be addressed when modeling behavior in economic contexts. Recent theories of non-pecuniary motives can be classified as altruism-, equity-, or reciprocity-based. We outline the qualitative differences in prediction these alternative explanations yield in a gift-exchange game. We estimate and compare leading approaches in these categories, using experimental data. We then offer a flexible approach that nests the above three approaches, thereby allowing for nested hypothesis testing and for determining the relative strength of each of the competing theories. In addition, the encompassing approach provides a functional form for utility in different settings without the restrictive nature of the approaches nested within it. Using this flexible form for nested tests, we find that intentional reciprocity, distributive concerns, and altruistic considerations all play a significant role in players' decisions.     

Religion and the sociological critique of political economy: Altruism and gift

Abstract

This article shows that there is a strong connection between the religious component of French sociology and the critique of political economy. In the first section, I consider how selfish behaviour, or egoism, became treated as a major threat endangering the creation of industrial society by those concerned about the diffusion of political economy. I then summarise the methodological critique set forth in the Cours, before connecting this critique to the economic content of the Système and the concept of altruism. In the following section, Spencer's view of altruism is contrasted to that held by Comte, and then I consider the reaction of French political economists, defending the moral value bought about by their science. In the final section, I explain how the Comtean approach was re-enacted by Durkheim and then by Mauss, at the head of the “sociology of religion” section of L'Année sociologique, the Durkheimian journal, to give birth to the theory of gift-giving behaviour that Mauss used to critique political economy in the 1920s.     

An Experimental Testing of Anchoring Effects in Discrete Choice Questions

This paper re-examines the openended/dichotomous choice question in the lab. It hasearlier been suggested that the dichotomous choiceformat suffers from anchoring and yea-saying.Comparing actual economic commitments for a privategood with a significant market value, we cannot rejectthe null hypothesis of equal WTP for the two formats.We conclude that problems with DC might be due toissues of how the survey is framed, not the DCquestion itself.     

Complements, Substitutes, Budget Constraints and Valuation

This study employs a multi-program contingent valuation (CVM) design tosimultaneously assess the value of three ecosystem conservation programsin Alberta, Canada. The design is different from most other CVM designsand has several different features including the natural incorporation ofdirect reminders of substitute/complementary programs and budgetconstraints. In contrast to the findings of other studies, two of the environmentalprograms appear to be complements and other combinations of the programssuggest an absence of substitution effects. The multi-program model ismore informative and robust in terms of theoretical validity and expectedrelationships with demographic and recreational characteristics of therespondents.     

Minimising Payment Vehicle Bias in Contingent Valuation Studies

The payment vehicle is a crucial element inapplications of the contingent valuation methodbecause it provides the context for payment. However,in many countries a relative unfamiliarity with theuse of tax levies and referenda can affect theplausibility of payment vehicles and lead to paymentvehicle bias. The most commonly used approach fordetermining whether payment bias exists is to usetests of convergent validity. It is demonstrated thatsimple tests of convergent validity can be ineffectivein diagnosing the existence of payment vehicle bias.Payment vehicle bias is found to occur because ofdifferences in the coverage of payment vehicles anddoubts about payment being one-off. When respondentsare found to be protesting against a particularpayment vehicle, the current state of the art approachis to delete them from the sample. In this paper analternative approach that relies on the recoding ofprotest responses is proposed.     

Preference Structures, Property Rights, and Paired Comparisons

The method of paired comparisons was used to determine the structure of survey participants' value expressions for Australian native forests. The same participants were also surveyed using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Data from the paired comparisons were used to construct preference maps which enabled identification of participants whose value expressions were structurally incompatible with economic welfare theory – in particular, those participants who expressed their values according to lexicographic preferences. For some of these participants, CVM results did not provide appropriate measures of WTP. The surveys also demonstrated the importance of allowing participants' own views on property rights to dictate the valuation context offered.     

A Learning Design for Reducing Hypothetical Bias in the Contingent Valuation Method

Over the last few years a great deal of research has focussed on hypothetical bias in value estimates obtained with the contingent valuation (CV) method and on means for ameliorating if not eliminating such bias. To date, efforts to eliminate hypothetical bias have relied on calibration techniques or on word-smithing of one kind or another to induce subjects to provide responses to hypothetical questions that mimic responses made by subjects facing actual payments in the valuation experiment. This paper introduces a different approach for eliminating hypothetical bias. A design for a CV survey format is presented which provides subjects with the opportunity to learn how the CV institution works. Sequential referenda are conducted where respondents gain experience in CV settings by participating in both hypothetical and real referenda. The logic of this Learning Design is a straightforward application of the trials process used in experimental economics. We demonstrate that the Learning Design is effective in eliminating hypothetical bias in surveys concerning donations to two different public goods.     

The Validity of Environmental Benefits Transfer: Further Empirical Testing

This paper provides further empirical evidence of the validity of environmental benefits transfer based on CV studies by expanding the analysis to include control factors which have not been accounted for in previous studies. These factors refer to differences in respondent attitudes. Traditional population characteristics were taken into account, but these variables do not explain why respondents from the same socio-economic group may still hold different beliefs, norms or values and hence have different attitudes and consequently state different WTP amounts. The test results are mixed. The function transfer approach is valid in one case, but is rejected in the 3 other cases investigated in this paper. We provide further evidence that in the case of statistically valid benefits transfer, the function approach results in a more robust benefits transfer than the unit value approach. We also show that the equality of coefficient estimates is a necessary, but insufficient condition for valid benefit function transfer and discuss the implications for previous and future validity testing.     

A cost-benefit analysis for the economic growth in China

Currently, traditional development issues such as income inequality, depletion of natural resources, environmental pollution as well as retardation of infrastructure have occurred in China. In the future, more pressures would be imposed on China by the continuous fast development of industrialization, and with transfer of the world manufacture center to China. Sustainable development, including its economic, environmental and social elements, is a key goal of decisionmakers. This paper develops a methodology on cost benefit analysis of economic growth at macroscopic level to identify issues of China's sustainability. In order to address some important issues on how to make policies to improve the quality of economic growth, the CBA framework developed in this study analyses economic-ecological-social interaction, building three accounts that reflect three dimensions of sustainable development that includes 26 sub-models in all, and finally is integrated into an index as Net Progress Proceeds (NPP). The estimation methods of these submodels, such as cost of environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources and defensive expenditures are described in detail. Based on the framework and methods, this paper examines the costs and benefits of economic growth in three aspects of economy, ecology and society. The results illustrate that NPR of China's economic growth had been negative for a long time and has just became positive since year 2000 but was quite low. Even the best was only 1.6% in 2002 (the worst was − 24.2% in 1982). Based on the comparison between three accounts, we can draw a conclusion that ecological cost is the dominant factor that affects China's NPR. The empirical results show that if no other innovative measures or policies are taken in the future the costs of growth would outweigh its benefits, resulting in un-sustainability. Basically, the long-term economic growth would be unsustainable due to increasing environmental damage and depletion of natural resources. There are a few limitations that we consider need to be improved in our CBA framework and method, nevertheless they have many options that can be explored by policy makers, to make the development path more sustainable.