WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR DESERT PROTECTION

This paper uses a referendum-style survey approach known as dichotomous-choice contingent valuation to estimate the benefits of restricting the uses of 6.9 million acres of desert land. Statistical techniques estimate the value to California residents of creating three new national parks and 76 new wilderness areas in the high and low deserts of eastern California. The total amount that California residents would be willing to pay to enact desert protection legislation ranges from $177 million to $448 million per year. This estimate hinges on the assumptions that (i) the residents who did not complete and return the survey questionnaire ("nonrespondents") would receive no benefits from desert protection and (ii) the estimate of willingness to pay for the "respondents" is unbiased.     

WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR SURPLUS SUGAR IN THE UNITED STATES

Sugar supply is managed in the United States to support minimum prices set by law. The 2008 farm bill contains the sugar‐to‐ethanol program to sell surplus sugar to ethanol producers and a program that allows bids from sugar processors. The sugar program is required to run at no net cost to taxpayers. Bids for surplus sugar are analyzed under various scenarios. Sugar processors will outbid ethanol producers given current ethanol prices. At present, surplus sugar bids will not exceed the minimum prices, and the sugar‐to‐ethanol program will not be able to help the government achieve no net program costs. (JEL Q18, Q42, Q48)     

WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR AIR QUALITY: THE CASE OF OUTDOOR EXERCISE

This study uses a contingent valuation (CV) survey to establish a sample of outdoor exercisers' willingness to pay (WTP) for ambient air quality improvements in East Baton Rouge parish, Louisiana. Estimated annual median and mean WTP values are £95 and £191, respectively, per person per year for assurance that ozone levels would not become "unhealthful" on any day. The survey informed respondents that in the prior year the local community experienced 14 days on which ozone levels exceeded federal standards. The study makes the strong assumptions that respondents believed they were "buying" 14 more healthy days and that WTP per day "bought" is constant. Given these assumptions, one can scale this WTP response to represent annual medians and means of approximately £7 and £14 per person per day, respectively. An econometric procedure for generalizing the community's annual WTP to avoid the 14 unhealthful days yields estimates ranging from £3.21 and £5.36 per person per healthy day, or between £12.4 and £20.6 million per year. The unit day estimates are comparable to CV and household production finction estimates of WTP in the Los Angeles basin, suggesting their usefulness for benefits transfer .     

WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR AMATEUR SPORT AND RECREATION PROGRAMS

A contingent valuation method (CVM) survey in Alberta, Canada, allows estimation of the household willingness to pay (WTP) for enhancements in the province's extensive sport and recreation programs. The estimated annual WTP of $18 per household for small enhancements in the programs far exceeds the estimated WTP of households in the United States to avoid the loss of major league sports teams, as determined in previous CVM studies. Those opposed to gambling, which helps to fund the Alberta programs, are more likely to favor using income taxes to finance expansions. ( JEL H41, L83)     

WILLINGNESS TO PAY IN CHINA'S NEW COOPERATIVE MEDICAL SYSTEM

Household survey data from China is used to analyze the determinants of households' willingness to pay to participate in the New Cooperative Medical System (NCMS). Wealthier households, households with at least one member who has been treated as an inpatient, and households in counties where NCMS is already established are willing to pay more for the program. Households who carry other forms of insurance, however, have a lower willingness to pay for the NCMS. We also find that the participation fee could be increased substantially to increase the size of the risk pool while scarcely affecting participation rates. (JEL I1, O1, D1)     

城市居民对居住区位的偏好及其区位选择的实证研究

利用详实的社会调查数据,考察了我国城市居民对居住区位的偏好和支付意愿,以及居民实际的区位选择。首先对影响居民对居住区位支付意愿高低(即支付意愿梯度)的因素进行了理论分析,分析了因素之间的相关关系,并探讨了研究支付意愿与区位选择差异性的方法。在理论分析基础上,建立了支付意愿梯度模型和区位选择模型,利用北京、上海、广州、武汉和重庆五城市的调研数据对模型参数进行了估计。结果显示,高收入群体仍倾向于居住在距离市中心偏近的位置,工作地点、对环境的偏好、城市规模和郊区基础设施完善程度都会从各种方面影响支付意愿的梯度值。市场力量已经在居住区位资源的配置中发挥重要作用,但存量住房流动性低和一部分居民的融资能力不足仍阻碍了其自由的区位选择。     

生态旅游认证产品支付意愿研究--基于浙江省四个景区旅游者的实证分析

生态旅游认证产品能否取得商业上的成功取决于旅游消费者对它的接受程度,通过对浙江省四个景区的实地调查,分析了旅游消费者对生态旅游认证产品的认知和态度,并运用假设评价方法评估了旅游消费者对生态旅游认证产品的支付意愿。研究结果表明,旅游消费者对生态旅游认证产品的选择意愿受性别、教育程度、月收入、旅游频率、旅游方式、过去一年旅游花费、对生态旅游进行专门的认证并授予生态资格证书的赞同程度以及未认证生态旅游产品的价格等因素的影响而差别显著;计算所得的WTP表明,平均而言,旅游消费者愿意支付比未认证的生态旅游产品高35.1%的价格来购买通过认证的生态旅游产品。     

江苏省城市消费者对食品安全支付意愿的实证研究-以低残留青菜为例

该文以江苏省城市消费者为调查对象,通过假想价值评估法,运用LOGIT回归模型,分析了消费者对食品安全(以低残留青菜为例)的支付意愿及其影响因素.研究结果表明,消费者对低残留青菜中食品安全的平均支付意愿达到了2.68元/斤,其价格溢出为335%.其中,大城市南京的消费者对食品安全的支付意愿为2.42元/斤,中小城市扬州的消费者的支付意愿为2.77元/斤.此外,该文还就影响消费者支付意愿的主要因素进行分析.     

江苏省城市消费者对食品安全支付意愿的实证研究-以低残留青菜为例

本文以江苏省城市消费者为调查对象,通过假想价值评估法,运用Logit回归模型,分析了消费者对食品安全(以低残留青菜为例)的支付意愿及其影响因素。研究结果表明,消费者对低残留青菜中食品安全的平均支付意愿达到了2.68元/斤,其价格溢出为335%。其中,大城市南京的消费者对食品安全的支付意愿为2.42元/斤,中小城市扬州的消费者的支付意愿为2.77元/斤。此外,本文还就影响消费者支付意愿的主要因素进行分析。     

MAKING WORK PAY FOR WELFARE RECIPIENTS

This paper describes five new welfare reform programs being tested in six areas of the United States and Canada. These programs all use financial incentives to encourage selfsufficiency among welfare recipients. Some programs also provide employment and training services. A microsimulation model is used to predict the impacts of the two most generous programs: the Canadian Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) and the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). The simulation results suggest that SSP and MFIP will modestly increase the number of welfare recipients who work. However, because SSP has a fulltime work requirement and MFIP does not, only SSP is predicted to generate an increase in fulltime employment     

聆听奥地利"凝固的音乐"

对空间建筑的雕塑表现形式以及自由三维度在当今世界范围内的发展，奥地利的建筑师担当着重要的角色。这种现象在类似的领域在一定的方式上有着它的根源，这个根源属于一个国家数世纪的丰富文化遗产。长达数百年之久的文化积淀，不仅诞生了与其相媲美的音乐，还诞生了被誉为凝固的音乐的建筑。     

THE CREATION OF A MICRODATA FILE FOR ESTIMATING THE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME*

This paper describes the methods used by the Office of Business Economics, U.S. Department of Commerce, in creating a microdata file for use in estimating the size distribution of income. It explains the techniques of statistical matching involved in merging microdata files from various sources to correct and supplement income estimates in the original field survey (The Current Population Survey) and to incorporate additional information that can be used to estimate items and types of income not contained in the original file.     

A TECHNIQUE FOR ESTIMATING INCOME TRENDS FROM CURRENCY DATA AND AN APPLICATION TO NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRAZIL

This paper develops a method for estimating long-run trends in income growth from the data available on a country's currency stock. The method is applied to nineteenth-centry Brazil. The results indicate that contrary to earlier beliefs, the country as a whole probably experienced only moderate growth in per-capita income during the nineteenth century. The approach may also be useful for other countries where data shortages preclude estimates of national income by conventional methods.     

CHILD SUPPORT IN THE U.S.: CAN FATHERS AFFORD TO PAY MORE?

This paper presents up-to-date estimates of the ability of non-resident fathers to pay child support. While no nationally representative data exist on the incomes of fathers, this issue has become more pertinent in recent years, as child support has become an important national issue. We find that fathers on average are able to pay nearly five times more in child support than they currently pay, and also that low income fathers can afford to pay substantially more than they actually pay. We also find that changes in nonmarital childbearing and the returns to education have had only minimal effects on trends in fathers' incomes.     

CONFRONTING OBJECTIONS TO PERFORMANCE PAY: THE IMPACT OF INDIVIDUAL AND GAIN-SHARING INCENTIVES ON JOB SATISFACTION

The increasing use of incentive pay schemes in recent years has raised concerns about their potential detrimental effect on intrinsic job satisfaction (JS), job security and employee morale. This study explores the impact of pay incentives on the overall JS of workers in the United Kingdom and their satisfaction with various facets of jobs. Using data from eight waves (1998–2005) of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and a uniquely designed well-being dataset (EPICURUS), a significant positive impact on JS is only found for those receiving fixed-period bonuses. These conclusions are robust to unobserved heterogeneity, and are shown to depend on a number of job-quality characteristics that have not been controlled for in previous studies.     

ESTIMATING THE RANK OF COINTEGRATION AFTER ESTIMATING THE ORDER OF A VECTOR AUTOREGRESSION*

Small sample properties are studied for the maximum likelihood test in determining the rank of cointegration. Firstly, some statistical methods are developed to determine the lag order of the vector auto-regressive (VAR) processes with unit roots. The asymptotic x² distribution of the likelihood ratio statistic is proved. Then the asymptotic standard normal distribution of the t-ratio is established for coefficients of differenced variables in the error correction representation. The t-ratio can be used to test the significance of individual coefficients in the highest order term of VAR processes without using any information on co-integration. The small sample properties of the likelihood ratio test, the t-test, AIC, and BIC are explored by simulations which are found indispensable in finding the order of VAR processes possibly with unit roots. Furthermore, and most importantly, our simulation shows that the trace test for finding the rank of co-integration does not depend much on the lag order selection criteria. Whichever procedure is used to find the lag order of a VAR process, the trace or the maximum eigen value test may on average give a similar rank of co-integration though this can be wrong.