Recreational behavior of onshore and offshore oil industry employees in Newfoundland,Canada

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of surveys of oil industry employees in Newfoundland, Canada, working both onshore and offshore on rigs and supply boats. The surveys reveal the different recreational behavior of respondents compared to local residents, and the unique and restricted environments in which they live and work while offshore. The analysis covers the leisure time activities both offshore and onshore, and the effects of the relocation to Newfoundland upon the recreational behavior of the sample. Conclusions discuss the significance of relocation upon recreation behavior, and implications for planning, provision, and operation of leisure opportunities in coastal zone areas affected by hydrocarbon development.     

Conservation finance and sustainable tourism: the acceptability of conservation fees to support the Tambopata National Reserve,Peru

Protected areas are key to the conservation of global biodiversity and ecosystem services; however, their success is contingent upon adequate funding. One possibility to increase funding for park management is to “sell” a wider suite of ecosystem services “produced” by protected areas, such as carbon sequestration. We conducted 420 tourist surveys to analyze willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem service benefits via a conservation fee in the Tambopata National Reserve in Peru. We also interviewed eight tour operators about their perceptions of the proposed fee. The average stated WTP was 15 USD. Sixty-six percent of tourists stated they would pay 10 USD or more, which, if actually paid, would have resulted in 318,000 USD for park management in 2015. Most respondents stated they would pay an additional fee if it supported biodiversity conservation or local ecosystem services, such as water, but less than 10% of tourists were motivated by carbon sequestration as a reason to pay the fee. Most tour operators supported the additional fee. Our findings suggest that tourists are willing to pay higher fees to support conservation but that interest in paying for additional ecosystem services from parks may not extend to global and intangible benefits such as carbon sequestration.     

Don't Tax the Net

Electronic commerce has the potential to reduce transaction costs drastically. It is the most dynamic sector of the world economy. Governments should restrain themselves from extending taxes to electronic commerce or they will reduce the gains from innovation.     

A theory of risk disclosure

In this paper, we consider the price effects of risk disclosure. We develop a model in which investors are uncertain about the variance of a firm’s cash flows and the firm releases an imperfect signal regarding this variance. In our model, uncertainty over the riskiness of a firm’s cash flows leads to a variance uncertainty premium in its price. We demonstrate that risk disclosure decreases the firm’s cost of capital by reducing this premium and that the market response to risk disclosure is small when the expected level of risk is high. Moreover, we find that firms acquire and disclose more risk information when their cash flow risk is greater than expected. Finally, we demonstrate that in a multi-asset setting, only risk disclosure concerning systematic risks will impact the cost of capital.     

Increasing Charitable Giving: What Can We Learn from Economics?*

There is growing policy interest in charitable giving in the UK. As part of its Big Society agenda, the current government is keen to encourage a higher level of donations, highlighting new technologies, new social norms and tax incentives as potential mechanisms for raising giving. In the 2012 Budget, however, the Chancellor also proposed limiting tax relief on donations to £50,000, sparking an intense discussion about the effectiveness and desirability of tax incentives for major donors. This paper brings together recent evidence relevant to the ongoing policy debates.     

What's on the Menu? Policies to Reduce Young People's Sugar Consumption

Young people in the UK consume far above the maximum recommended levels of added sugar. It is likely that neither they nor their parents fully take account of the future health, social and economic costs of this high sugar consumption. This provides a rationale for policy intervention. The majority of young people's added sugar consumption occurs in the home, where purchases are typically made by parents. This means that understanding the purchase decisions of adults is important for policy design, even if the policies aim to reduce the consumption of young people. We discuss the merits of popular policies, including taxes, advertising restrictions and restrictions on the availability of specific foods, and we identify promising avenues for future research.     

Optimal commodity taxation with duty-free shopping

International travellers are frequently offered the opportunity to purchase a certain quantity of goods duty-free. Individuals differ in their opportunities to benefit from duty-free shopping, and we focus on the implications of these differences for optimal commodity taxation within a version of the optimal tax model of Mirrlees (Review of Economic Studies, 38, 175–208, 1971). We show how duty-free alters the constraints on the use of commodity taxes to reduce the distortionary costs of income taxation or to reflect externalities. Beyond characterising optimal taxes in the duty-free regime, we discuss conditions under which allowing duty-free would increase or reduce social welfare.      

An assessment of the psychometric properties of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS10) with a U.S. public accounting sample

Utilizing a convenience sample of 305 professional staff from seven public accounting firms, this study examined: a) the factor structure of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (PSS10; Cohen & Williamson, 1988); b) the invariance of its factor structure; c) the scale's reliability; and, d) its convergent and divergent validity. Our analyses support a structure with two primary factors, (General Distress and Ability-to-Cope), which load on a single second order factor, Perceived Stress, regardless of gender. Spearman–Brown reliability coefficients, item-total correlations, and coefficient alphas each supported the reliability of the items loading on the full scale as well as on each of the two primary factors. Collectively, these findings provide compelling evidence in support of the PSS10 as a perceived stress measure for accounting professionals. However, more research is warranted to investigate the efficacy of a reduced six-item version of the instrument.     

Bank CEO materialism: Risk controls,culture and tail risk

We investigate how the prevalence of materialistic bank CEOs has evolved over time, and how risk management policies, non-CEO executives’ behavior and tail risk vary with CEO materialism. We document that the proportion of banks run by materialistic CEOs increased significantly from 1994 to 2004, that the strength of risk management functions is significantly lower for banks with materialistic CEOs, and that non-CEO executives in banks with materialistic CEOs insider trade more aggressively around government intervention during the financial crisis. Finally, we find that banks with materialistic CEOs have significantly more downside tail risk relative to banks with non-materialistic CEOs.