Functional‐dynamic public participation in technological decision‐making: site selection processes of nuclear waste repositories

This study employs the ordered lottery selection approach with field experiment to measure risk attitude of two distinct population groups in China – farmers in Wuhan and freelancers in media and advertising in Beijing. A comparative design was used to reveal the cross-population difference in risk attitude and its affecting factors. The results showed that both groups exhibited constant partial risk aversion and decreasing absolute risk aversion, while the farmers were more risk-averse than the freelancers. The farmer and freelancer respondents demonstrated very different sensitivity to the warming-up games types involving ‘gain-only’ or ‘gain-loss’ while extremely risk-averse respondents in the warming-up games possessed the consistent attitudinal behavior in the formal tests. The comparative experiment revealed that gender and income were two statistically significant factors affecting risk attitude and they appeared to be consistent across the two distinct groups. Surprisingly, respondents’ perceived frequency of risk occurrence was not correlated to their risk attitude. Moreover, the factors of leisure and investment behavior were significantly linked to the freelancers’ risk attitude but not the farmers’. The experiment also found a non-linear relationship between risk attitude and education, and receiving college education was found to be a critical switching point that was significantly linked to respondents’ risk choices. While further research is needed to better understand the governing mechanism in risk attitude, perception, and behavior, this paper tried to link the experimental results to the natural disaster insurance practice in China and discussed their implication to the policy design.     

The influence of linear and cyclical temporal representations on risk perception of nuclear waste: an experimental study

Time is an important aspect of the issue of nuclear waste, both from a technical and from a perceptional perspective. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between time and risk perception of nuclear waste, applying the discounting paradigm and therefore limiting time to one very narrow aspect: its duration. However, time is a multifaceted concept and encompasses more than a linear property. The aim of our study is to test the influence of a different aspect of time, namely temporal representations (linear or cyclical) on risk perception of nuclear waste. In an experimental study we demonstrate that both linear and cyclical representations have a reducing effect on risk perception compared to the control condition, where no specific time representation was activated. Examining group differences, we also demonstrate that temporal representations have a differing influence depending on whether participants have a stable belief about nuclear waste or whether they belong to an ambivalent group that does not yet hold a stable belief. Furthermore, we replicate the well-documented gender gap in risk perception. Our results bear potentially interesting implications for risk communication by demonstrating a causal relationship between the graphic representation of time and risk perception of nuclear waste.     

Willingness to Pay and Sensitivity to Time Framing: A Theoretical Analysis and an Application on Car Safety

Stated preference (SP) surveys attempt to obtain monetary values for non-market goods that reflect individuals’ “true” preferences. Numerous empirical studies suggest that monetary values from SP studies are sensitive to survey design and so may not reflect respondents’ true preferences. This study examines the effect of time framing on respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for car safety. We explore how WTP per unit risk reduction depends on the time period over which respondents pay and face reduced risk in a theoretical model and by using data from a Swedish contingent valuation survey. Our theoretical model predicts the effect to be nontrivial in many scenarios used in empirical applications. In our empirical analysis we examine the sensitivity of WTP to an annual and a monthly scenario. Our theoretical model predicts the effect from the time framing to be negligible, but the empirical estimates from the annual scenario are about 70 % higher than estimates from the monthly scenario.     

BANKRUPTCY DISCRIMINATION WITH REAL VARIABLES

This paper reconsiders the accepted usage of nondeflated financial ratios in statistical models to differentiate between failed and nonfailed firms. Non-deflated ratios are hypothesized to inadequately reflect inter-temporal macroeconomic fluctuations that affect the ability of firm's to survive. Using a sample of 124 oil and gas companies between the period 1982–1988, the going concern assumption is evaluated with statistical logit models using either nondeflated or deflated financial ratios. Deflated company ratios are created by transforming data with price indices or by creating market value ratios. Empirical results suggest that a superior bankruptcy early warning model is developed for the oil and gas industry by creating real financial and reserve ratios and by introducing external factors, such as oil prices, interest rates and accounting method, as independent predictors. Overall classification accuracy is approximately 95 percent.     

Econometric Evaluation of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve*

We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPCM) as an empirical model of European inflation. The favourable evidence for NPCMs on euro‐area data reported in earlier studies is shown to depend on specific choices made about estimation methodology. The NPCM can be re‐interpreted as a highly restricted equilibrium correction model. We also report the outcome of tests based on variable addition and encompassing of existing models. The results show that economists should not accept the NPCM too readily.     

Twin Data vs. Longitudinal Data to Control for Unobserved Variables in Earnings Functions – Which Are the Differences?*

This paper compares two different approaches empirically to control for unobserved characteristics when estimating the effect of marriage on male and female earnings: the longitudinal and the twins approach. The estimates were obtained by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of a large sample of Swedish twins, so that longitudinal and twin‐based estimates could be obtained in the same sample. The two approaches lead to different conclusions both regarding the role of unobserved characteristics in the cross‐sectional earnings–marriage relationship and the effect of marriage on earnings. The paper investigates three potential explanations of this difference.     

Measuring financial performance on dairy farms

The motivation for this paper was to improve the information provided by the extension service for dairy farming. Databases as the Norwegian Dairy Financial Recording (NDFR) are commonly used for comparative analysis of farms. In the present paper, the problems related to these comparisons are discussed. Four different measures of financial performance are presented. The measures are; the gross margin, extended gross margin, and two different efficiency indexes based on use of data envelopment analysis (DEA). All four measures have advantages and disadvantages. The two gross margins are suitable for ranking farms when evaluating the impact of operative management variables, e.g., disease and miscellaneous welfare enhancing inputs on performance. However, efficiency indexes, which are estimated as ratios of actual and maximum output, given inputs, are more suitable when evaluating the impact of strategic management variables, e.g., concentrate or roughage per litre milk produced on performance.     

Anti‐dumping Protection in a Liberalising Country: Mexico's Anti‐dumping Policy and Practice

The use of anti‐dumping policy has been steadily growing in recent decades, and so has the theoretical and empirical literature on anti‐dumping. However, while developing countries as a whole have become at least as active as the ‘traditional’ anti‐dumping regimes (the USA, the EU, Canada and Australia), the literature is almost exclusively concerned with the latter group. This article gives an overview of anti‐dumping policy and practice in Mexico, one of the leading ‘new’ anti‐dumping regimes. It assesses how anti‐dumping has expanded since the country began liberalising trade in the mid‐1980s, and discusses how the policy has been applied in a protectionist way that is not dissimilar to policy practice in the traditional user countries.