农户对新农合的需求研究:一个分析框架

对农民新农合的需求作了框架性研究。运用线形扩展支出模型定量分析了农民的支付能力。农村贫困人群确实存在支付能力问题。政府应对贫困人群的合作医疗筹资给予更大的支持力度。对于绝大数农民, 关键不在于支付能力, 而在于支付意愿。对农民的支付意愿构建了国家、社区、家庭和个人的四维解释框架。在国家层面, 影响因素主要是对政府的信任程度、政府的"机构能力"以及补贴的力度大小;在社区层面, 社会资本在社区健康融资中发挥着重要作用;家庭对合作医疗的支付意愿主要取决于其对参与的成本和收益的比较, 同时, 家庭成员内部风险分担机制和家庭之间风险分担机制也会对家庭的支付意愿产生影响。支付意愿还和农民的个人特征相关。     

种粮农户的信息需求与信息支付意愿分析——基于粮食主产区的调查数据

利用来自粮食主产区的548户种粮农户的调查数据,通过建立多元排序Logit模型和二元选择Logit模型,实证分析了种粮农户的信息需求和信息支付意愿。结果显示:种粮农户最关注的三类信息为种粮补贴信息、气象信息和市场价格信息;种粮农户的信息支付意愿明显较低;种粮农户对不同类型信息需求程度的排序结果与信息支付意愿排序结果并不完全一致;种粮农户的信息需求和信息支付意愿受农户的基本特征、收益特征、经营特征、信息特征和所处环境特征等五类变量的共同影响。     

住宅智能化、消费者异质性与支付意愿——基于技术接受模型的实证分析

智能时代的到来使得智能化新产品成为人们广泛关注的焦点,住宅产业也在经历智能化的转变。本文从消费者的角度,基于技术接受模型(TAM),构建了住宅智能化对于消费者支付意愿的影响模型并对其进行实证研究。研究结果表明：住宅智能化能够通过满足消费者对住宅功能的需求进而提升消费者的支付意愿,消费者异质性对智能化住宅和支付意愿的关系具有调节作用。年轻群体和低收入群体更关注智能化住宅的基本居住功能和生活品质功能;未婚消费者更关注智能化住宅的生活品质功能,已婚群体对住宅智能化的支付意愿更高;低收入群体相比高收入群体对住宅智能化的支付意愿更高;高教育配套需求者、有会所需求和有装修需求的消费者对住宅智能化的支付意愿更强烈。     

城镇消费者对有机农产品的购买意愿分析——以有机大米消费为研究对象

基于对北京市、武汉市城镇消费者对有机大米的消费行为调查,分析了有机农产品溢价购买意愿和边际购买意愿。运用联合分析法研究发现,当前消费者对有机农产品的溢价购买意愿倾向比较低,但边际购买意愿较高,价格过高限制了有机农产品的推广。另外,消费者对有机农产品的认知水平、品牌因素对消费者购买意愿有着重要的影响作用。     

Correcting for the endogeneity of pro-environment behavioral choices in contingent valuation

In contingent valuation studies, observed behavioral choices often enter as independent variables in the willingness to pay function. However, these variables may be endogenously determined when the error term in the behavioral model is correlated with the error term in the willingness to pay model. We investigate the effects of correcting for the endogeneity of a variable, namely membership status in environmental organizations that proxies unobservable characteristics of the respondents. Jointly modeling the membership variable and the willingness to pay response yields an estimate for the effect of the former that contradicts previous findings but is intuitive and agrees with theoretical expectations.     

众筹模式下心理距离对投资者支付意愿的影响

众筹是一种新型的网络融资模式,投资者对项目的支付意愿受到众多因素影响。将众筹的研究视角延伸至投资者心理行为领域,从投资者心理角度,研究时间和空间距离与投资者支付意愿的关系,应用解释水平理论,验证了解释水平与心理距离匹配对投资者支付意愿作用的差异。     

Willingness and ability of Bulgarian consumers to pay for improved public health care services

An application of the contingent valuation method to the willingness and ability of Bulgarian consumers to pay for public health care services is presented. The study uses data from a household survey conducted in May–June 2000. The willingness and ability to pay for outpatient, inpatient and dental services is investigated. A combination of interval checklist and open-ended questions are used to elicit the willingness-to-pay amounts. The impact of the sociodemographic characteristics on the responses is examined by a generalized Tobit regression. Based on the regression equation, the welfare effects of various fee levels are simulated.     

Temporal insensitivity of willingness to pay and implied discount rates

A number of studies have defined and tested the temporal sensitivity of willingness to pay to payment schemes and the resulting implied discount rates for environmental projects. We demonstrate that those studies have imposed restrictive assumptions on the structure of the willingness to pay function and the underlying decision process. We investigate the temporal sensitivity of willingness to pay using a new temporal willingness to pay function applied to a proposed oyster reef restoration program. We find that (1) holding the length of the project constant, the temporal willingness to pay for the project is the same across different payment schemes, (2) temporal willingness to pay does not vary significantly across projects of varying lengths, and (3) estimated discount rates are low relative to previous studies, but vary significantly across payment schemes and project lengths.     

Household willingness to pay and income pooling: A comment

We demonstrate some problems with Munro 2005 (“Household willingness to pay equals individual willingness to pay if and only if the household income pools”, Economics Letters 88, 227-230). Furthermore, we reconsider income pooling in a slightly changed framework and prove: Income pooling implies that household willingness to pay is equal to minimal individual willingness to pay. The converse is not true.     

Spatial competition with intermediated matching

This paper studies a two-sided market where the one type of agents needs the service of a middleman or matchmaker in order to be matched with the other type. The matchmakers compete for agents of both types by means of commission fees. In addition to the fee, the agents also lose a certain transaction cost in case of a match, which may differ among agents. Furthermore, agents have a limited willingness to pay for the service provided by the matchmakers. In certain cases the matchmakers are willing to subsidize one side of the market. Then one of the types of agents is free-riding.     

Willingness to pay for a Green Energy program: A comparison of ex-ante and ex-post hypothetical bias mitigation approaches

The most persistently troubling empirical result in the contingent valuation method literature is the tendency for hypothetical willingness to pay to overestimate real willingness to pay. Two approaches, ex-ante and ex-post, have been developed to mitigate or eliminate the overstatement of hypothetical willingness to pay. The ex-ante approach addresses hypothetical bias in the survey design stage while the ex-post approach addresses hypothetical bias with follow-up questions to the hypothetical willingness to pay question. We find that willingness to pay estimates are similar when either the ex-ante or ex-post approach are employed. Our results suggest that the approaches should be considered as complements and not substitutes. Employing both approaches to mitigate hypothetical bias we estimate that the annual benefits of the regional amenities associated with a Green Energy program in North Carolina are $186 million.     

A comparison of contingent valuation method and random utility model estimates of the value of avoiding reductions in king mackerel bag limits

This paper estimates the value of king mackerel bag limit changes with both stated and revealed preference methods. The 1997 Marine Recreational Fishery Statistical Survey allows estimation of the value of avoiding bag limit reductions with the random utility model and the contingent valuation method. Using the contingent valuation method, the willingness to pay to avoid a one fish reduction in the bag limit is $2.45 per year. Using the random utility model, the willingness to pay to avoid a one fish reduction in the bag limit is $2.24 per trip and $7.71 for a two-month time period. Considering several methodological issues, the difference in willingness to pay between the stated and revealed preference methods is in the expected direction.     

Ticket pricing and the impression of excess demand

If willingness to pay depends on characteristics of other attendees, a monopolist will use a lineup as a screening mechanism only if a consumer's characteristic is inversely related to her cost of lining up. No capacity constraint is necessary.     

The Willingness to Accept Value of Statistical Life Relative to the Willingness to Pay Value: Evidence and Policy Implications

Large disparities between willingness to accept (WTA) and willingness to pay (WTP) based values of statistical life are commonly encountered in empirical studies. Standard economic theory suggests that if a public good is easily substitutable there should be no marked disparity between WTA and WTP values for the good, though the disparity increases with reduced substitutability. However, psychologists have shown that people often treat gains and losses asymmetrically and tend to require a substantially larger increase in wealth to compensate for a loss than the amount they would be willing to pay for an equivalent gain. Although most transport projects may aim to improve safety, situations arise when a relaxation of an existing regulation saves resources but increases the risk of death and injuries. A survey was recently carried out in New Zealand to determine people’s willingness to pay to reduce road risks and their willingness to accept compensation for an increase in risk. This paper reports the disparity observed between the two measures and considers some of the problems posed for policymakers.     

Actual averting expenditure versus stated willingness to pay

The purpose of this study is to perform a complete comparison of actual averting expenditure and stated willingness to pay measures, and to determine if the averting expenditure is a lower bound of the willingness to pay measured from contingent valuation experiment as suggested by literature. In addition to the single value comparison, Bootstrap, Krinsky and Robb, Jackknife, and Cameron are four simulation methods used to calculate confidence intervals for response function. Sample sizes of 100, 200, and 1000 are simulated 100 and 200 times respectively. A set of data with 540 households from a contingent policy referendum survey is employed for our purpose. Under a specific level of BOD improvement, a one-to-one single mean value comparison of the actual averting expenditure is greater than the mean willingness to pay from utility difference model. The empirical results are consistent with the theoretical expectation for expenditure difference that averting expenditure is a lower bound of willingness to pay generated from the contingent valuation method. A confidence interval, which contains the true mean willingness to pay at least 90% of the times, includes the actual averting expenditure as a lower bound of the mean willingness to pay as theory predicts.     

Incorporating Discontinuous Preferences into the Analysis of Discrete Choice Experiments

Data from a discrete choice experiment on improvements of rural landscape attributes are used to investigate the implications of discontinuous preferences on willingness to pay estimates. Using a multinomial error component logit model, we explore differences in scale and unexplained variance between respondents with discontinuous and continuous preferences and condition taste intensities on whether or not each attribute was considered by the respondent during the evaluation of alternatives. Results suggest that significant improvements in model performance can be achieved when discontinuous preferences are accommodated in the econometric specification, and that the magnitude and robustness of the willingness to pay estimates are sensitive to discontinuous preferences.     

Complementarity of willingness to pay and cost heterogeneity under vertical product differentiation: A welfare analysis

Due to the fact that a consumer’s willingness to pay differs between segments, many unregulated industries are price constrained, although the specific costs of market segments also differ. If the product quality is endogenously chosen, we find that third-degree price discrimination increases welfare if a sufficiently pronounced complementarity between the willingness to pay and variable cost heterogeneity is given. This is due to the fact that the monopolist’s incentive for employing a pronounced price dispersion strategy is directly influenced by the consumers’ willingness to pay for the quality of a product. With endogenous product quality, the paper shows that the standard welfare result of third-degree price discrimination compared to uniform monopoly pricing (e.g. that total welfare and consumer surplus both fall if total output does not rise) can be only reversed given the complementarity is sufficiently pronounced.     

The willingness to pay–willingness to accept gap: A failed replication of Plott and Zeiler

The well-known willingness to pay–willingness to accept (WTP–WTA) gap refers to the observation that individuals attach a higher value to objects they own (WTA) than to objects they do not own (WTP). We report on experiments to re-investigate the possibility that the WTP–WTA gap arises from subject misconceptions due to experimental procedures as suggested by Plott and Zeiler (2005). The contribution of this paper is two-fold: first, we attempt to replicate the findings by Plott and Zeiler that the WTP–WTA gap disappears when using procedures that are aimed at reducing misconceptions, such as extensive training and practice rounds for the BDM mechanism. However, we fail to do so as the WTP–WTA gap persists in the main task where subjects state their WTA or WTP for a mug. Second, we use the paid practice rounds to identify subjects without apparent misconceptions and find that also for those subjects who never make dominated choices in the lottery tasks, the WTP–WTA gap in the mug task exists. Thus, we find no evidence of the idea that subject misconceptions are the main source of the WTP–WTA gap.     

Eco-Labeling and Horizontal Product Differentiation

This paper investigates the impact of eco-labels on the abatement of emissions in a market with horizontal product differentiation. A distinction is made between an end-of-pipe abatement method and a clean technology approach. In the former case underinvestment is likely to occur even if the marginal willingness to pay for abatement of consumers is equal to the social marginal benefit of abatement. The level of abatement depends on the number of firms and on the number of consumers. For a large market with few firms overinvestment in abatement is also possible. Clean technology abatement achieves a first best level regardless of market size if all consumers have a marginal willingness to pay for abatement equal to its social benefit.