Protest Responses in Contingent Valuation

A significant number of respondents to contingent valuation surveys tend to either state a zero bid, or refuse to state a bid at all, for reasons associated with the process of valuation. These protest responses are routinely removed from contingent valuation samples because it is assumed that they are not indicative of respondents true values. The censoring of protest responses has led to the emergence of a definitional controversy. One view is that the definition of protest responses and the rules for censoring them are dependent on whether the practitioner conceives of the contingent valuation survey as a market or as a referendum. However, what is not acknowledged is the possibility that protest responses and their meaning may vary according to the type of good being valued, the elicitation format, and the interaction between these elements and external factors. This potential renders the development of unambiguous rules for censoring protest responses difficult. Moreover, when willingness to pay is viewed as a behavioural intention, it becomes important to determine what the responses actually mean. This approach does not assume an interpretative position a priori against which the responses should be judged, but seeks to inform an existing understanding which is inadequate.     

IRELAND's INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

There are concerns that the unprecedented economic boom which Ireland experienced in the second half of the 1990s has raised only some living standards and has widened income gaps. This paper analyzes Ireland's income distribution in comparative perspective, to understand how Ireland's distribution changed and how it compares to other rich countries. We begin with OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data to compare Ireland's degree of well-being and inequality with other advanced countries. We also look in some detail at alternative sources of Irish income and their implications for the trends in income inequality in Ireland from 1994 to 2000. For instance, we examine the top of the distribution using data from the administration of the income tax system. We conclude that the spectacular economic growth in the past decade has seen the gap in average income between Ireland and the richer OECD countries narrow dramatically. However, this growth has not greatly affected the Irish ranking in terms of income inequality. Ireland remains an outlier among rich European nations in its high degree of income inequality, though still falling well short of the level seen in the United States. In the end, we find that Ireland's new-found prosperity provides a "social dividend," and choices about how it is used will fundamentally affect whether the current high level of income inequality persists into the future.     

Foresight on biopharmaceuticals: Designing foresight methods for Spanish biopharmaceuticals

This paper has as its starting point the analysis of the systemic failures in the Spanish Biopharmaceutical Innovation System grounded in the study carried out by the same authors for the OECD between 2002 and 2004. Based on the evidence that one of the main failures is the lack of sufficient linkages between the different actors involved in the dynamic of the system, this paper proposes third-generation foresight as an instrument of science and innovation policy for resolving the problem of systemic failures. Foresight exercises could become an important instrument for reorienting policy, building new networks and linkages among the different actors, bringing new stakeholders into the strategic debate, exploring future opportunities for investment in science and innovation activities, etc. The objective of this paper is the design of a foresight exercise on biopharmaceuticals with the aim of solving, or at least reducing, the failures of this Spanish sectoral system of innovation and in consequence making it stronger.     

Factors affecting electricity generation in China: Current situation and prospects

China has attracted worldwide attention due to the global economic and environmental effects of its rapid economic growth over the last 20 years, with particular attention given to the country's accelerating energy consumption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. China's electricity sector is particularly important for both of these issues as it accounts for nearly half of its greenhouse gas emissions and even greater proportions of the country's demands for primary fuel resources. In order to better understand how these issues may progress in an economy changing as fast as China's, this paper develops a framework that can be used to help model the electricity sector's future development. The framework builds upon key technological and socio-economic drivers, including those affecting electricity demand (e.g., economic growth, structure, energy efficiency, urbanization, and change in per capita income) and electricity supply (e.g., deregulation, initiatives to promote natural gas, nuclear and renewable energy, air pollution regulations, price developments for coal and natural gas, and changes in generation technology). The framework serves as a foundation for a scenario exercise on the greenhouse gas and fuel consumption impacts of different developmental paths for China's electricity sector. These scenarios and their implications for emissions and fuel consumption are presented in a subsequent article.     

Development of internal resources and capabilities as sources of differentiation of SME under increased global competition: A field study in Mexico

This paper draws on the resource-based view of the firm and contributes to our understanding of how the development of internal resources and capabilities in SMEs can provide sources of competitive advantages in the international arena and improve their business performance.This research found statistical evidence to suggest that business performance measured by growth rate, efficiency, productivity and shareholder's financial returns, is positively related with the development of internal capabilities such as soft technology (methods and processes that support the firm) and hard technology (externally acquired equipment, in-house development of machinery and innovation in raw materials) and a strategy of continuous improvement, innovation and change.A number of relevant contributions are proposed in this piece of research that expands our understanding of how SMEs can compete in the international context: (1) firms whose explicit business strategy emphasizes innovation and knowledge creation have been able to successfully participate in global contexts; (2) even though financial resources are important for a firm to leverage performance it was found that development of internal capabilities has been more important than limited financial resources in order to develop competitive advantages to compete with larger and multinational competitors; (3) results of this research support the proposition that from an associational economy perspective the development of a geographical region or country should be an interaction among a number of constituents namely government policies, the firms themselves and universities and research centers among others.     

Logistic analysis of recent environmental interest

Progress in some fields has been shown to occur through a sequence of high-activity periods that often exhibit logistic growth patterns. Previously, this was demonstrated for local environmental issues during the U.S. Progressive Era through an analysis of environmental (aerial and water-borne) diseases. Later (1970s and 1980s), logistic growth trends in interest (articles and legislation) in national environmental concerns was demonstrated. Recently, environmental attention has included global issues resulting in several international environmental treaties that attempt to address the concerns. Logistic analysis is applied to the recent trends of interest in international environmental issues. This interest is measured at many levels: popular magazine articles, popular books, research-oriented books, and international treaties. There are indications that the elevated level of international environmental interest might have passed the midpoint, in the 1990s, of a 5-decade period. This recent period is compared with previously identified periods concerning local and national environmental issues. Possible reasons for the trends include the recent increasing rate and scope of technological development and the related, perhaps delayed social response. Potential future trends might indicate the relative rate of technological development and social resolution of its impacts. A possible leading indicator is the business and governance response to new technologies, like nanotechnology, which might be responsibly developed to mitigate previous environmental issues without introducing new unintended environmental consequences.     

The trade-induced degradation hypothesis

This paper develops a simple two-sector dynamic model to examine the effects of international trade when government policy regarding the environment is short sighted, but still responsive to changes in income levels and in the quality of the environment. We show that free trade can usher in a negatively reinforcing cycle of increased pollution, lower environmental quality, and lower real incomes. Such cycles are not possible in autarky. We link the potential for trade to cause ‘large’ environmental consequences to the structure of tastes and technologies and the attributes of industrial pollution.     

Economic Value of the Carbon Sink Services of Tropical Secondary Forests and Its Management Implications

This paper explores the economic feasibility of secondary forest regeneration and conservation as an alternative in the campaign addressing the problem of global warming. Detailed measurements of tropical secondary forests over time, in different ecological zones of Costa Rica, are used to evaluate carbon storage models. The paper addresses key issues in the international discussion about cross- and within-country compensation for carbon storage services and illustrates a method to compute/predict their economic value over time under a variety of scenarios. The procedure is applicable to other developing countries where secondary forest growth is increasingly important.     

On designing economic agents that behave like human agents

This paper explores the idea of constructing theoretical economic agents that behave like actual human agents and using them in neoclassical economic models. It does this in a repeated-choice setting by postulating artificial agents who use a learning algorithm calibrated against human learning data from psychological experiments. The resulting calibrated algorithm appears to replicate human learning behavior to a high degree and reproduces several stylized facts of learning. It can therefore be used to replace the idealized, perfectly rational agents in appropriate neoclassical models with calibrated agents that represent actual human behavior. The paper discusses the possibilities of using the algorithm to represent human learning in normal-form stage games and in more general neoclassical models in economics. It explores the likelihood of convergence to long-run optimality and to Nash behavior, and the characteristic learning time implicit in human adaptation in the economy.     

ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION AND MODELS OF CREDIT RATIONING

This paper outlines the development and exposits some of the central ideas and implications of asymmetric information in the credit market.