Climate Response Uncertainty and the Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions

Some recent research suggests that uncertainty about the response of the climate system to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations can have a disproportionately large influence on benefits estimates for climate change policies, potentially even dominating the effect of the discount rate. In this paper we conduct a series of numerical simulation experiments to investigate the quantitative significance of climate response uncertainty for economic assessments of climate change. First we characterize climate uncertainty by constructing two probability density functions—a Bayesian model-averaged and a Bayesian updated version—based on a combination of uncertainty ranges for climate sensitivity reported in the scientific literature. Next we estimate the willingness to pay of a representative agent for a range of emissions reduction policies using two simplified economic models. Our results illustrate the potential for large risk premiums in benefits estimates as suggested by the recent theoretical work on climate response uncertainty, and they show that the size and even the sign of the risk premium may depend crucially on how the posterior distribution describing the overall climate sensitivity uncertainty is constructed and on the specific shape of the damage function.     

The impact of public information on bidding in highway procurement auctions

A number of papers in the theoretical auction literature show that the release of information regarding the seller's valuation of an item can cause bidders to bid more aggressively. This widely accepted result in auction theory remains largely untested in the empirical literature. Recent theoretical work has also shown that this effect can be more pronounced in auctions with larger common cost uncertainty. We examine the impact of a policy change by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation that led to the release of the state's internal estimate of the costs to complete highway construction projects. We perform a differences-in-differences analysis comparing bidding in Texas, a state that had a uniform policy of revealing the same information all throughout the period of analysis, to bidding in Oklahoma. Our results show that, in comparison to Texas auctions, the average bid in Oklahoma fell after the change in engineers’ cost estimate (ECE) policy. This decline in bids was even larger for projects where the common uncertainty in costs is greater. Moreover, the within-auction standard deviation of bids fell after the change in ECE policy with the most significant decline observed again in projects with greater common cost uncertainty.     

Fungibility and the impact of development assistance: Evidence from Vietnam's health sector

The apparent fungibility of aid is a challenge to the evaluation of donor-funded development projects, requiring a comparison of the observed outcomes with the outcomes that would have occurred if the project had not gone ahead. Where projects are targeted on specific geographic areas, counterfactual outcomes in each can differ from observed outcomes because the amount of government spending (gross of aid) differs, the productivity of government spending differs, or both. This paper estimates the benefits of two concurrent World Bank health projects in Vietnam targeted on specific provinces. Estimates are derived from a model linking outcomes (under-five mortality) to government spending before and after the project and in project and nonproject provinces, and are presented for different assumptions regarding fungibility of funds (zero and full fungibility) and the impacts of the project on the productivity of government spending (the project modifies productivity in both sectors equally and in neither sector). The estimated mortality reductions are highly insensitive to the assumed degree of fungibility, but highly sensitive to the assumed productivity effects (the estimates range from 1 to 25%). The wide range reflects the uncertainty due to the lack of a genuine control group of provinces.     

Monopolists and viscous demand

We characterize the optimal dynamic price policy of a monopolist who faces “viscous” demand for its services. Demand is viscous if it adjusts relatively slowly to price changes. We show that with the optimal policy the monopolist stops short of achieving 100% market penetration, even when all of the consumers have the same long-run willingness to pay for the service. Furthermore, for certain parameter values in the model, the price policy requires rapid oscillations of the price path.     

Modelling dynamic storage function in commodity markets: Theory and evidence

In this work, we derive a model to investigate the optimal storage policy in metal commodity markets. From an inter-temporal setting, we carry out a criterion driving the stockholding decisions based on Tobin's q rule in which marginal benefits from holding inventories can be compared with marginal storage costs.We estimate the model for the world copper market by taking into account both spot price and convenience yield equations. In our sample, the estimated models are statistically robust and economically coherent with the theory, even though the patterns of the inventory accumulation process show high sensitivity to the uncertainty about worldwide economic conditions.     

A DYNAMIC MODEL OF CLEANUP: ESTIMATING SUNK COSTS IN OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION

The environmental remediation required to permanently decommission most industrial projects is an expensive, irreversible investment. Real options literature shows that temporary closure has value under uncertainty. However, even if there is no intention to restart operations, there is an incentive to label a closure as “temporary” to avoid having to remediate ongoing or future environmental externalities. I estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of closure under price and quantity uncertainty to evaluate the likelihood of reactivation. The model reveals that the option to temporarily close is being widely used to avoid environmental remediation of oil and gas wells in Canada.     

实物期权方法在BOT公路投资项目中的应用

投资项目具有多种期权特性,传统的DCF评价方法无法评估多个不确定性对投资项目的影响。实物期权方法为决策者提供了一个有效管理不确定性因素的工具。国内外学者就BOT公路投资项目中的增长期权、延迟期权、投资扩张、政府保证、特许权期限调整、通行费率调整、投资成本和车流量不确定性等多个问题进行了大量的讨论。本文首先对实物期权理论在BOT公路投资项目方面的应用研究进行文献回顾,然后详细的分析了国内BOT公路投资项目收益的不确定性、项目投资的可延迟性、项目的可扩建性、政府的保证以及项目特有的土地开发及广告收益等多个特点具有的期权价值。并对这些期权的定价模型进行了简要的介绍。文章最后对运用实物期权理论应用过程中的难点进行了分析,并在此基础上总结实物期权理论在BOT公路投资项目中应用的研究方向。     

基于实物期权的企业信息化多项目投资决策研究

企业投资信息化项目不同于一般的项目,信息化项目具有高度的不确定性、收益的无形性和延迟性等特点,传统的投资决策评价方法面对不确定性很高的信息化项目无法作出科学的判断,无法赋予投资者更多的灵活性。由于企业信息化项目投资及其产生的效益的不确定性具有许多实物期权的特点,因此,将运用实物期权方法来解决企业信息化多项目投资决策风险控制问题。     

Modelling the Non-market Environmental Costs and Benefits of Biodiversity Projects Using Contingent Valuation Data

CV studies rarely ask willingness to accept (WTA)questions, yet there are a range of environmentalprojects where there are likely to be potential losersas well as gainers. This paper presents evidence fromsix biodiversity projects that the inclusion ofcontingent compensation payments from thoserespondents who preferred the status quo cansubstantially reduce net project benefits, even whenthe proportion of losers is relatively small. Astatistical model for estimating the mean welfaremeasure from dichotomous choice data which allows forboth positive WTP, zero WTP, and WTA is described. Asmany environmental projects are likely to create bothgainers and losers, we recommend that CV analysts giveserious consideration to the collection and analysisof WTA data otherwise they risk generating biasedestimates of project benefits.     

Voting on the environment: Price or ideology? Evidence from Swiss referendums

Studies on preferences for environmental quality usually posit that price and income explain most of the observed choices. Incorporating recent advances in the economics of non-selfish behavior into the traditional public choice approach, we argue that the willingness to contribute to public goods as well as social norms need to be taken into account when analyzing environmental voting outcomes. We study aggregate results of three ballot proposals in Switzerland put to vote in the year 2000 which foresaw different tax schemes on fossil energy. Our main results show that the aggregate level choice pattern is to be explained by income as well as structural attributes that make costs and benefits of the projects vary. More importantly, our results underline the importance of including variables pertaining to the notion of ideology, both in terms of statistical fit and obtaining unbiased estimates for price and income determinants.     

On market-mediated emissions and regulations on life cycle emissions

We analyze the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a regulatory tool using biofuel regulations as an illustrative example. A regulatory context calls for a consequential LCA (CLCA) of a policy as opposed to an attributional LCA (ALCA) of a product. In performing CLCA, issues of scale, price effects, technology and policy in the counterfactual state of the world, strategic behavior, policy horizon etc. need consideration. This appears to increase both uncertainty in estimates and the cost of performing LCA. We suggest heuristics for determining vulnerability to harmful indirect effects at an early stage in the policy process and discuss alternative policies to limit harmful indirect effects without engaging in the full effort of computation and selection of a central estimate for uncertain outcomes.     

What to Value and How? Ecological Indicator Choices in Stated Preference Valuation

The ecological literature accepts that many policy outcomes cannot be observed directly and must be characterized using indicators. Multiple indicators can often be used to communicate similar ecological outcomes. Previous studies using alternative indicators in stated preference surveys suggest that welfare estimates may be indicator-dependent, casting doubt on whether welfare estimates are sufficiently reliable for cost benefit analysis. We suggest that the reason for such indicator dependence may be that indicators used in these prior studies represented different outcomes valued by respondents. This possibility underscores the need for greater attention to selection of indicators and their properties within stated preference survey design. This paper develops a model introducing the concept of outcome equivalent indicators, defined as indicators that provide alternative representations of identical underlying outcomes. To assess empirically whether welfare estimates are indeed robust to indicator choice when alternative indicators are expected to be outcome equivalent, we analyze data from a choice experiment estimating willingness to pay for migratory fish restoration in Rhode Island, USA. Results demonstrate that welfare estimates are robust to the use of alternative ecological indicators within stated preference scenarios.     

Measuring the benefits of local publilc goods: environmental quality in Gaston County,North Carolina

Local governments across the United states have been confronted with a growing range of federal and state-mandated environmental protection programmes. It is found that an application of contingent valuation to a local environmental policy is internally valid by theoretically and empirically examining the economic determinants of responses to a hypothetical referendum. The resulting option price estimate is statistically reliable and has a reasonable order of magnitude. Results indicate that respondents are willing to pay for improvements in water quality,but not air qualilty. It is found that informatiion from various external sources helps to explain risk perceptions, and these perceptions, in turn influence willingness to pay. The aggregate benefits of an air and water polllution control programme to Gaston County are estimated to be $13.07 million annually with a 90% confidence interval of $11.07 million and $16.12 million.     

Pricing Personal Services: An Empirical Study of Earnings in the UK Prostitution Industry

The hedonic pricing method is used to investigate the way in which the prices of prostitutes' services are determined. The data used in the analysis are extracted from an internet site, each observation being based on a report submitted by a client. The factors affecting price are identified in a regression framework, and combined with other information to provide estimates of the earnings, both aggregate and individual, for a sub‐sector of this underground service industry in the United Kingdom. Comparison of these earnings' estimates with data on earnings from alternative employment then allows us to estimate the compensating wage differential, and also to verify the theoretical prediction that prostitutes' earnings are positively related to earnings from alternative employment.     

Irreversible investment in alternative projects

Summary. We study the problem of a risk-neutral decision-maker who has to choose among two alternative investment projects of different scales under output price uncertainty. We provide parameter restrictions under which the optimal investment strategy is not a trigger strategy and the optimal investment region is dichotomous. Whenever the decision-maker has the opportunity to switch from the smaller scale to the larger scale project, the dichotomy of the investment region can persist even when the volatility of the output price process becomes large.Received: 6 July 2004, Revised: 23 March 2005, JEL Classification Numbers: C61, D83.Jean-Paul Décamps: Correspondence toWe would like to thank Marco A.G. Dias for many stimulating discussions. Financial support from FNS is gratefully acknowledged.     

An assessment of the empirical magnitude of option values for environment goods

This paper provides an empirical assessment of the magnitude of option values relative to expected surplus using a model presented by Larson and Flacco (1992). Option values and option prices are computed for both simulated data sets and actual estimates of recreation demands. Results indicate that option values engendered by price and income uncertainty are generally quite a small percent of expected surplus.     

BENEFITS OF PRESERVING OLD-GROWTH FORESTS AND THE SPOTTED OWL

This paper presents results from a national contingent-valuation study of the economic benefits of preserving old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest. The study elicits "market-like" valuation responses from U.S. households concerning the benefits of a conservation policy for the northern spotted owl. These data provide a basis for estimating the benefits of preservation in terms of average household willingness to pay. Existing cost estimates are used to compute threshold prices that the benefits of the policy must exceed for the policy to be efficient. Benefit/cost ratios are calculated using "best" and "lower-bound" estimates of the benefits of preservation. Under all combinations of assumptions, the estimated benefits exceed the costs of the conservation policy.     

A variance equality test of the ICAPM on Philippine stocks: post-Asian financial crisis period

Analysis of the data generated from various residential time-of-day electricity pricing projects often involves estimation of a system of demand equations. Both ad hoc demand models and neoclassical demand models have been estimated, often resulting in considerably different estimates of price elasticities. In this paper, elasticity estimates are presented from each type of demand model using data from the Arizona and North Carolina rate demonstration projects. The relationship between the elasticities generated from ad hoc models and separable neoclassical models is explored and the divergent price elasticity estimates are reconciled.     

UNCERTAINTY AVERSION AND PORTFOLIO INERTIA

In stock markets, we often observe portfolio inertia, i.e., a situation in which some stocks are not traded or not priced for a few minutes or longer. This is neither an exceptional situation in which some stock price soars too high to be priced, nor the one where some stock price plummets too much to be traded. By introducing the concept of ‘Knightian uncertainty’, Dow and Werlang (1992) account for the existence of portfolio inertia, which has not been accounted for under the concept of ‘risk’. This paper provides a characterization of the spread between buying and selling prices based on a parameter proposed by Ozaki and Streufert (1999, 2001) that enables us to estimate the attitude towards Knightian uncertainty, and shows that an increase (a decrease) in Knightian uncertainty expands (shrinks) the interval in which an investor never changes her initial position. Furthermore, we analyse the effect of an increase in Knightian uncertainty on portfolio inertia based on Epsilon‐contaminations.     

The willingness to pay for mortality risk reductions in Mongolia

This paper reports results from a stated preference survey designed to estimate the willingness to pay for mortality risk reductions in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The survey includes both contemporaneous and latent risk reductions of a magnitude typically achievable through clean air policy. The study is one of a series of national studies designed to provide comparable estimates around the world. One goal of this series is to build a more solid bridge for benefits transfer between developed and developing countries. The survey was conducted in winter 2010. Estimates of willingness to pay passed external and internal scope tests. Study results imply a value of statistical life of approximately $500,000 (based on a purchasing power parity exchange rate) for a contemporaneous 5-in-10,000 annual risk reduction.