De zelfstandige winkelier en de afbetaling

In dit artiket zijn alle nitgangs-n's weggelaten.     

Community-based incentives for environmental protection: the case of green electricity

This paper examines the effectiveness of using community-level rewards to subsidize environmental protection. Specifically, we study the Connecticut Clean Energy Communities (CCEC) program that provides mostly symbolic rewards in the form of municipal photovoltaic installations in proportion to the number of households that voluntarily purchase green electricity. We find that the program causes a 22 % increase in the number of households purchasing green electricity in CCEC municipalities. The pattern of results suggests that the CCEC leads to the mobilization of community-based recruitment campaigns that increase signup rates by up to 700 % around the period of initial qualification. We also find that a change in the marginal incentive created by the program has little consequence on signup behavior. The implication for policy is that community-based incentives can be effective, but the size of the subsidy itself appears less important. Finally, simple calculations based on CCEC up-front costs reveal upper-bound, cost-effectiveness measures of $570 per household signup, 6.7 $\not {c} $ per kilowatt-hour of annual green-electricity demand, and $113 per ton of annual carbon-dioxide emission reductions.     

The behavioral response to voluntary provision of an environmental public good: Evidence from residential electricity demand

This paper develops a theory of voluntary provision of a public good in which a household's decision to engage in a form of environmentally friendly behavior is based on the desire to offset another behavior that is environmentally harmful. The model generates predictions about (1) participation in a green-electricity program at the extensive and intensive margins, and (2) changes in electricity consumption in response to participation. We test the theory using billing data for participants and nonparticipants in a green-electricity program in Memphis, Tennessee. High-consumption households are more likely to participate, and they participate at higher levels. In terms of a behavioral response, households participating above the minimum threshold level do not change electricity consumption, but those participating at the minimum threshold increase electricity consumption 2.5 percent after enrolling in the program. The result is based on identification strategies that exploit before–after differences between participants and nonparticipants, and differences in the timing of enrollment among participants only. Despite the increase in electricity demand upon the purchase of green electricity for the households with a “buy-in” mentality, the net effect for the buy-in households is a reduction in pollution emissions, as the behavioral response is not large enough to offset the environmental benefit of the green-electricity purchase.     

Are There Income Effects on Global Willingness to Pay for Biodiversity Conservation?

This paper is concerned with the empirical relationship between biodiversity conservation values and income. We use random effects panel models to examine the effects of income, and then GDP per capita, on willingness to pay for habitat and biodiversity conservation. In a meta-analysis, 145 Willingness To Pay estimates for biodiversity conservation where existence value plays a major role were collected from 46 contingent valuation studies across six continents. Other effects included in the meta-analysis were the study year; habitat type; continent; scope as presented to respondents; whether WTP bids were for preventing a deterioration or gaining an improvement in conservation, whether a specific species or specific habitat was protected; whether the questionnaire used a dichotomous choice or an open-ended format; distribution format; and the choice of payment vehicle. GDP per capita seemed to perform as well as an explanatory variable as respondent’s mean stated income, indicating that it is wealth in society as a whole which determines variations in WTP. Even if large variation, our main conclusion is, that the demand for biodiversity conservation rises with a nation’s wealth, but the income elasticity of willingness to pay is less than one.     

Energy Demand,Structural Change and Trade: A Decomposition Analysis of the Danish Manufacturing Industry

This paper examines the relation between trade patterns and energy consumption in manufacturing industries. An input-output decomposition method is used to decompose the change in industrial energy consumption for Denmark into six components, of which three are trade-related. Trade-induced changes in energy consumption have important implications for issues such as international distribution and regulation of energy consumption and emissions. It is shown that a structural change in foreign trade patterns can increase domestic energy demand. This is contrary, however, to what might be expected for a small industrialized country, which is presumed to export products that intensively use inputs of skilled manpower as well as research and development. Finally, calculations carried out at different levels of aggregation are compared. The findings here demonstrate the importance of large variations in energy intensities among subsectors for the calculation results.     

Fictitious Play in Extensive Form Games

This article analyzes the fictitious play process originally proposed for strategic form games by Brown (1951) and Robinson (1951). We interpret the process as a model of preplay thinking performed by players before acting in a one-shot game. This model is one of bounded rationality. We discuss how fictitious play should then be defined for extensive form games and conclude that this is somewhat problematic. We therefore study two alternative definitions. For either of these, under a weak condition of initial uncertainty, a convergence point of a fictitious play sequence is a sequential equilibrium. For generic games of perfect information initial uncertainty also implies convergence of fictitious play.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Number: C72.     

The death of the deal: Are withdrawn acquisition deals informative of CEO quality?

To examine the market response to positive revelations of chief executive officer (CEO) quality, this study focuses on CEOs who withdraw acquisition bids when the price becomes increasingly expensive. Firms that withdrawal for price-related reasons earn higher withdrawal returns than firms that withdraw for other reasons. This relation is stronger when CEO uncertainty and discretion is high. CEOs unwilling to increase the offer price are less likely to be replaced and more likely to advance to a larger firm than a control group of CEOs. The finding that the market attaches value to CEO-specific information suggests that unobservable manager characteristics can meaningfully impact firm outcomes.     

Striking oil: Another puzzle?

Changes in oil prices predict stock market returns worldwide. We find significant predictability in both developed and emerging markets. These results cannot be explained by time-varying risk premia as oil price changes also significantly predict negative excess returns. Investors seem to underreact to information in the price of oil. A rise in oil prices drastically lowers future stock returns. Consistent with the hypothesis of a delayed reaction by investors, the relation between monthly stock returns and lagged monthly oil price changes strengthens once we introduce lags of several trading days between monthly stock returns and lagged monthly oil price changes.