Modeling Spatial Patchiness and Hot Spots in Stated Preference Willingness to Pay

Stated preference analyses often impose strong assumptions regarding spatial welfare distributions that can influence the validity of welfare analysis and aggregation. These include spatial homogeneity and continuous distance decay. Global assumptions such as these are increasingly questioned by non-economics disciplines in favor of approaches that allow for local patchiness. Drawing from this literature, this article proposes methods to identify and evaluate hot spots in stated preference welfare estimates using local indicators of spatial association. Methods are illustrated using geocoded choice experiment data addressing river restoration. Results suggest the presence of statistically significant, non-continuous patterns overlooked by current approaches.     

Timeline of a financial crisis: Introduction to the special issue

The economic crisis fueled by risky mortgages and the exotic financial instruments developed from bundling these mortgages caused the largest one-day losses on the US stock market in history (BBC News, 2009a). The resulting financial collapse quickly spread throughout the world, causing economic recessions in much of the EU, Turkey, and many other countries. Since 2008, economists, government agencies, and academics pondered the causes of the financial crisis with an eye toward avoiding such catastrophic collapse in the future. This special issue contributes to the discussion by bringing together academics from marketing, finance, and economics to put the financial crisis into theoretical perspective and propose theoretically viable alternatives to avoid similar economic downturns in the future.     

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND DISSENT FOR POSTCOLONIAL URBAN SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITIONS

Environmental justice principles are widespread at national and global levels of transition discourse, but this is sometimes irrelevant to marginalized communities. To address this issue, we apply environmental justice theory to a participatory postcolonial urban case study where poverty, unemployment and inequality continue to incentivize unregulated exploitation of vulnerable environments and people. It is unclear how national legislation can provide for indiscriminate access to environments that promote wellbeing in complex postcolonial communities, where xenophobic and economic discrimination reproduces colonial-style inequalities. To resist this injustice, the combination of academic and ordinary expressions of critique that confront regressive praxis and orthodoxies becomes a valuable and constructive political innovation for transitions. Empirical results suggest that enfranchising the most vulnerable proponents of transformation could advance their political capital to advocate for themselves, formulate and enculturate decolonized visions of urban sustainability, demand governmental and commercial accountability and foster urban reform that is relevant to them.