Contingent Valuation Versus Choice Experiments: Estimating the Benefits of Environmentally Sensitive Areas in Scotland

This paper reports results from a study of the economic value of the conservation benefits of Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) in Scotland. The main novelty of the approach taken is in comparing two direct valuation methods, namely contingent valuation and choice experiments, to value these benefits. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is well-established as a technique for valuing the sorts of landscape and wildlife enhancements associated with ESAs. The CVM experiment reported here uses a dichotomous choice format, and includes a new correction for part-whole bias. Choice experiments are much less used as an environmental valuation technique. We note several advantages of such experiments over CVM, and then report characteristic values and ‘programme values’ estimated using the method. This application brings to light some problems in applying the choice experiment method. Finally, we discuss the issue of benefits transfer in the context of these two approaches to valuation.     

Rent Management – The Heart of Green Industrial Policy

At the heart of green industrial policy is rent management: government creating and withdrawing opportunities for profitable investment. This paper asks what the key factors are for rent management to succeed. Drawing on a range of literatures, the paper first deals with the critical success factors for ‘normal’ rent management and then turns to one of the most pressing and controversial issues of our time: how to bring about the transition to green energy. This is extra challenging because technological uncertainties are high, time horizons for investment are long, yet action is required now.     

Border tax adjustments and U.S. trade

This paper reports welfare and terms of trade effects from border adjustments in the indirect taxes used by major U.S. trading partners using a numerical general equilibrium model of world trade and production due to Whalley (1985). Where the United States is a net importer of manufactures (as with Japan and the EEC) the United States gains by having these countries administer taxes on a destination rather than an origin basis. This is because the taxes involved typically have higher rates on manufactured products, and a discriminatory origin basis tax with higher rates on exportables operates akin to an export tax.     

取悦客户的上上策

用户的忠实程度对于一个公司的兴衰成败意义重大,在经济发展前景不确定的情况下更是如此.对于一个公司来说,寻找一个新的用户并与之建立商业合作关系所需要的资金是维持一个现有用户的30倍～40倍,并且这种资金常常超越了公司的成本底线.因此,公司在维持与现有用户的商业合作关系上多投入5%的资金,就能够多得到25%～55%的利润回报.     

Noch mehr Overheads in die Zentrale? — Marketing- und Vertriebsressourcen als internationale Erfolgstreiber

Die Leistungen der Unternehmenszentrale stehen h?ufig unter scharfer Kritik, da sie aus Sicht internationaler Führungskr?fte die Treiber der Overheadkosten sind. Der Wertsch?pfungsbeitrag, den die zentralen Abteilungen erbringen, wird hingegen nur selten diskutiert. Nur wenn zentrale Marketing- und Vertriebsabteilungen es schaffen, ihren Wertsch?pfungsbeitrag deutlich zu machen und auch in Taten umzusetzen, kann die Existenz zentraler Abteilungen langfristig gesichert und Synergien realisiert werden. Der folgende Beitrag zeigt, wie dies gelingen kann.     

Prüfungsforschung im deutschen Sprachraum – Bestandsaufnahme, Entwicklungstendenzen und Herausforderungen

National and European regulatory initiatives like the Bologna process frame the conditions for research activities at universities. The changed conditions increase the pressure to publish articles in highly-ranked, mostly international academic journals. It seems likely that expectations of the international research community will affect the applied research methods, the regional focus of the research object and the tendency towards co-authorship. Against this background, the present article conducts a literature review in order to examine the publication activities of German-speaking auditing researchers and discusses further explanations for the observed developments. We examine 308 journal articles by German-speaking auditing researchers between 2000 and 2011. Our analysis documents an increase in the number of articles over time as well as an increase in articles in highly ranked journals. In recent years a higher share of the research applies empirical methods, in particular statistical interference. A dominant topic of the articles is the audit market and environment. Thematic focuses vary over time, partly due to day to day events. The research object remains focused on a European and especially national context in many cases. We present selected key research results and finally discuss challenges for research activities coming along with the described developments.