The Effect of Protest Votes on the Estimates of WTP for Use Values of Recreational Sites

Contingent valuation studies are often characterized by a considerable number of protest responses, which may cause selectivity bias on the final estimates for WTP. Sample selection models can detect and – if necessary – correct selectivity bias. In economic applications where the relevant dependent variable is continuous, sample selection models are generally estimated using Heckman's 2-step method rather than the FIML estimator. Either method has its own drawback: computational complexity for the FIML method, susceptibility to collinearity problems for the 2-step method. Using data on valuation of forest resources for recreational use, we analyse the performance of the two estimators. In this application, given the presence of some collinearity, the FIML is preferred to the 2-step method. A procedure is outlined to deal with selectivity problems in similar settings.     

The Effect of Respondent Experience/Knowledge in the Elicitation of Contingent Values: An Investigation of Convergent Validity,Procedural Invariance and Reliability

Tests of convergent validity and procedural invariance were used to investigate whether individuals lacking direct experience with a commodity can provide valid responses to contingent-valuation questions eliciting ex post use values. Convergent validity between samples with and without experience was shown to hold for dichotomous-choice responses, but not for open-ended responses.     

The measurement and decomposition of nonuse values: A critical review

We critically review the literature that claims that existence values, or nonuse values in general, are a large and measurable component of total value for certain environmental resources. Our concern is not with the question “do nonuse values exist?” For some individuals they surely do. Rather, our concern is with two interrelated questions: are there operationally meaningful theorems which might lead to the specific measurement of nonuse values, and do we in fact have a body of credible evidence which shows that nonuse values, particularly components of any nonuse value, are “large”? We find nothing in the way of operationally meaningful hypotheses which would permit the estimation of values attributable to specific motives of individuals. We find no credible basis for claims related to either the measurement of existence and other motive-related values or claims for the “large” relative size of such values. In short, we question the conventional wisdom that such values are measurable and that they are significant as a component of total value.     

The Endowment Effect and the Role of Uncertainty

This paper explains the endowment effect, whereby sellers generally demand considerably more for a good than buyers are prepared to pay, and related anomalies. Many decisions, including nominating buying or selling prices, involve uncertainty, and we assert that people experience negative psychological reactions to uncertainty. These reactions can affect a person's valuation of the various options, biasing the person's actions towards the status quo, thus producing the endowment effect. Our model also proposes positive or negative reactions to unlikely prospects, which are able to explain commonly observed behaviour in the presence of ambiguity.     

制度研究的新视角：文化传统的作用与影响——读《文化传统与经济组织》一书

最近 ,读到王询博士的新著《文化传统与经济组织》 (国家自然科学基金资助项目 ,东北财经大学出版社 ,1 999年 5月出版 ) ,获益匪浅。该书堪称是近年来国内制度经济学研究方面的创新之作 ,其新颖独到之处就在于它超越了一般制度研究文献所惯常采用的纯经济分析范式 ,在广泛吸取了近年来国内外在经济学、社会学、历史学、哲学等多方面研究成果的基础上 ,从垮学科的宽视角去洞察文化传统对于经济制度发展的影响 ,挖掘制度、组织形式变迁的文化基因 ,因而开辟了制度研究的一种新思路。可以肯定地说 ,在当今制度经济学文献近于汗牛充栋的供给形…     

Repeated Dichotomous Choice Formats for Elicitation of Willingness to Pay: Simultaneous Estimation and Anchoring Effect

Repeated dichotomous choice contingent valuation data are generated from responses to a succession of binary questions regarding alternative prices for an environmental good. In this paper we propose a simultaneous equation model that allows for endogeneity and error correlation across the responses at each stage of the bidding process. The model allows us to study the evolution of anchoring effects after the second dichotomous choice question. Estimation involves the Bayesian techniques of Gibbs sampling and data augmentation, and the application focuses on the preservation value of a natural area. The results for a data set involving up to four successive dichotomous choice questions show that restricted multiple-bounded models are rejected by the data with the general model. In addition, willingness to pay tends to stabilize after the second stage in the elicitation process for the general unrestricted model. When taking anchoring effects into consideration, it is revealed that individuals’ responses in the latter stages are influenced by the sequence of bid prices offered in earlier questions. Nevertheless, they do not have a significant effect on welfare estimates.      

The Adding-Up Test in an Incentivized Value Elicitation Mechanism: The Role of the Income Effect

In the context of testing the construct validity of stated preference studies, some researchers advocate the use of an “adding-up test” designed to gauge whether elicited values are sufficiently sensitive to a change in the scope (i.e. size) of a good. Crucial to the applicability of this test in practice, which relies on endowing a subsample of respondents with a good free of charge, is that the income effects due to endowment are negligible. In this study, we apply the adding-up test in an experimental value elicitation format to examine the potential effect of endowment as part of the test design on the adding-up property of elicited values. The results show that the adding-up property can be affected by free provision of part of the bundle.     

刍议外商独资化实现方式及效应

随着经济全球化和信息化的迅猛发展,外商对华投资独资化的倾向越发明显,其投资方式已由先前的合资转向独资;投资手段由合资转向并购。在探讨新形势下外商独资化实现方式的基础上,探究了外商独资化对我国经济发展的正、负效应,并提出相应的化解策略。     

The fit and misfit of technological capability: Responses to vehicle emission regulation in the US

Regulatory moves towards reducing vehicle emissions have not proceeded with uniform success. Some regulations have been readily fulfilled, while others receive much criticism and resistance from the automotive industry. The reasons for this lie in matching the regulatory instrument with the technological capabilities of the auto industry. This paper develops a model describing the instruments used and their effectiveness in the US. In this case, low-emission vehicles which represent an incremental developmetn of established technologies are readily accepted by manufacturers and requre controlling instruments for their intorduction. However, zero-emission vehicles are outside the boundaries of traditional automotive firms, and their development has met more resistance and support for technology development has met more resistance and needs support for technology development as part of the regulations.     

Spatial and Temporal Efficiency in Climate Policy: Applications of FUND

FUND is an integrated assessment model of the interactions between climate and economy. Nine world regions emit greenhouse gases, and suffer damages from climate change. A number of greenhouse gas emission reduction policies are compared, including optimal and cost-effective strategies, strategies with early and late abatement, and strategies with and without international co-operation. The analyses confirm that co-operation matters, resulting in substantially lower costs or higher welfare. The real commitments of policy targets based on an absolute level (e.g., 1990 emissions) are hard to estimate because of the uncertainties in the baseline. Postponing action conflicts with minimising costs and maximising welfare, but so does sharp emission reduction at the short-term as proposed in the Kyoto Protocol.     

社会主义市场经济视阈下的马克思主义公平思想:挑战与回应

马克思主义公平思想产生于近代市场经济阶段,来源于德国古典哲学的公平思想、英法古典政治经济学的公平思想、空想社会主义的公平思想,具有科学性、阶级性、革命性的特征。在社会主义市场经济条件下马克思主义公平思想面临着新的实践与挑战。社会主义市场经济下马克思主义公平思想仍然居于指导地位,并且需要丰富与发展;应批判借鉴人类公平正义思想的理论成果;应培养适应社会主义市场经济要求的新型公平观,努力保证起点公平、机会公平、结果公平。     

The Global Disconnect: The Role of Transactional Distance and Scale Economies in Gravity Equations

Recent empirical analyses show that asset flows can be modelled by the same 'gravity' equations that trade economists have used so successfully for the past few decades. This is something of a surprise. Trade economists do not yet have a unified theory of why gravity models should work‐and the situation is worse for asset flows. Reasonable theories would predict that greater distance between countries should generate more asset flows rather than less as the econometric results seem to consistently show. In this paper we discuss how host and source country GDPs, language, and distance the core explanatory variables in the traditional gravity models‐fare in trade and asset flows estimations. While the 'distance puzzle' is not resolved, it is considerably reduced by going beyond consideration of physical distance to concepts of transactional distance and scale economies.     

The Economic Value of Air-Pollution-Related Health Risks in China: A Contingent Valuation Study

The economic value of preventing adverse health effects related to air pollution is estimated using contingent valuation in three diverse locations in China. Values are estimated for three health endpoints: cold, chronic bronchitis, and fatality. Alternative statistical models are tested to study their impact on estimated willingness to pay (WTP) and on the relationship between WTP and respondent characteristics. Using the official exchange rate, the sample-average median WTP to prevent an episode of cold ranges between US$3 and US$6, the WTP to prevent a statistical case of chronic bronchitis ranges between US$500 and US$1,000, and the value per statistical life ranges between US$4,000 and US$17,000. Estimated mean values are between two and thirteen times larger. Our estimates are between about 10 and 1,000 times smaller than estimates for the US and Taiwan using official exchange rates. Indoor air quality, measured for a subset of respondents, shows no consistent relationship with WTP.     

Innovation and Competition: The Role of Finance Constraints in a Duopoly Case

In this paper we analyse the role of financial resources in a process of competition interpreted as a continuous restructuring of productive capacities. Financial constraints appear an essential means of co-ordination. Co-ordination with the environment where this process of restructuring takes place for the process itself to be viable and co-ordination between firms for the survival of competition.     

Permanency and Flexibility of Institutions: The Role of Decentralization in Chinese Economic Reforms

The purpose of this paper is to offer a Lachmannian analysis aimed at studying the coherence and the efficiency of reforms in China in terms of institutional change. The idea is that transition dynamics cannot be analyzed by reference to market criteria only; transition is, above all, a change in institutions. Every transition economy thus faces the problem of creating a new institutional framework which associates the co-ordination of activities by the market with the preservation of a centralized mechanism of resource allocation. We explain that, in China, this role is played by decentralization. Indeed, we demonstrate that Chinese economic reforms, of which the main institutional vector is decentralization, show the particularity of reconciling, within one single logic, the permanency of a well-established institutional order required for the co-ordination of individual plans, and the flexibility of institutions necessary for the move towards the market. We then defend the theory that both the success and the originality of Chinese economic reforms rest on their capacity to resolve the permanency-flexibility dilemma.     

Environmental Degradation and Population Movements: The Role of Property Rights

This study examines the linkages between environmental degradation (viewed primarily as deforestation and land degradation) and the movement of population from one region to another within a developing country. The hypothesis postulated is that the link between population and environmental degradation is mediated by the nature of property rights in land. This hypothesis is examined with the help of two alternative methodologies. Firstly, a simultaneous equations model using data for the arid and semi-arid region of Western India illustrates that outmigration from the region is largely the consequence of push factors such as environmental degradation and decrease in common land. Alternatively, micro experiments in environmental protection and the creation of common property rights on open access land in the same region indicate that the association between migrational change, creation of common property rights and participation indices is high. It can be concluded that once property rights are well defined with the help of appropriate institutional arrangements, labour moves towards the creation of common assets and an improvement in the environment takes place. Out migration is prevented and higher levels of population are supported by the same resources. The authors wish to thank Ms. Seema Bathla and Dr. Suresh Sharma for assistance in documentation, data collection and analysis.     

The Role of Political Instability in Stock Market Development and Economic Growth: The Case of Greece

This article examines empirically the relationship between stock market development, political instability and economic growth in Greece. We measure socio-political instability by constructing an index which captures the occurrence of various phenomena of political violence using time-series data. The main advantages of analysing political instability in a case study framework using time-series, in contrast with the widely used cross-country empirical studies, are: (a) a more careful and in-depth examination of institutional and historical characteristics of a particular country; (b) the use of a data set comprised of the most appropriate and highest quality measures; and (c) a more detailed exposition of the dynamic evolution of the economy. The empirical results indicate the existence of a strong negative relationship between uncertain socio-political conditions and the general index of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE) and support the theoretical hypothesis that uncertain socio-political conditions affect economic growth negatively, is true for the Greek case.
(J.E.L.: G10, G14, O40, C32)     

The Role of Keynesian Policies in Semi-industrialized Countries: theory and evidence from India

This paper examines the relevance of Keynesian policies—interpreted as those policies implied by Keynes's theoretical analysis of unemployment developed in The General Theory—for a subset of developing economies, which are called semi-industrialized countries. It draws on recent contributions in development economics to argue on theoretical grounds that Keynesian policies are relevant for semi-industrialized countries even when they are constrained by capital shortages, stagnant agricultural sectors, and foreign exchange availability. It then discusses the recent development experience of India to illustrate the empirical relevance of some of these theoretical issues.     

The Role of Culture and Meaning in Rational Choice

The Wason card selection and the Tversky &; Kahneman frame anomaly are examined in the context of a probabilistic, constructivist biological model of decision-making. Rational choice requires that decision-makers understand the meaning of the choices they confront. In fact, the determination of meaning and the process of rational choice represent two sides the same coin. Further, perception, cognition and action are ill-posed problems. To solve these problems ‘missing data’ must be supplied by the brain. This data is acquired by both ontogenetic and phylogenetic processes. These evolutionary processes facilitate the determination of meaning and as a product of that process also facilitate the construction of rationality. Two interrelated brain systems involved in this construction process are examined: an emotional system that rapidly and non-consciously assigns reward expectancy values to objects in the environment and a sensory-motor system that participates in the discovery of more general information that facilitates environment/body interactions. Jointly, these systems help a naïve agent to find ‘meaning in an unlabeled world’ and to predict the outcomes of future interactions with that world by supplying ‘background’ information, i.e., by supplying the missing data necessary for rational choice. This ‘background’ represents the imprint of the statistical structure of the world on the brain and, as such, embodies the individual’s Bayesian priors. Lack of sufficient background capacities can result in systematic judgment errors and seemingly irrational decisions. Complex culture is a key aspect of the environment that facilitates the construction of rationality, in part, by becoming internalized as background. Culture facilitates the creation of complex social constructs that contribute to cultural evolution, reduce uncertainty, and increase rationality; however, cultural evolution can get ahead of itself—potentially leading to background failure and errors in judgment and choice. Finally, it is not simply complexity or lack of hands-on experience that lead to error: an additional component that might be called semantic opacity is necessary.