Using Choice Experiments to Value the Environment

This paper we outline the “choice experiment” approach to environmental valuation. This approach has its roots in Lancaster's characteristics theory of value, in random utility theory and in experimental design. We show how marginal values for the attributes of environmental assets, such as forests and rivers, can be estimated from pair-wise choices, as well as the value of the environmental asset as a whole. These choice pairs are designed so as to allow efficient statistical estimation of the underlying utility function, and to minimise required sample size. Choice experiments have important advantages over other environmental valuation methods, such as contingent valuation and travel cost-type models, although many design issues remain unresolved. Applications to environmental issues have so far been relatively limited. We illustrate the use of choice experiments with reference to a recent UK study on public preferences for alternative forest landscapes. This study allows us to perform a convergent validity test on the choice experiment estimates of willingness to pay.     

Estimating local average treatment effects in aggregate data

In some contexts, the effect of a treatment can be estimated with easily accessible aggregate rather than individual data, using difference-in-difference estimation. However, under imperfect assignment within groups, this produces intent-to-treat estimates, which may not be the treatment effect of interest. This article provides a method for estimating local average treatment effects using aggregate data. I also suggest a data source that allows the method to be applied when treatment rates are not recorded.     

A GAME THEORETIC FOUNDATION OF COMPETITIVE EQUILIBRIA WITH ADVERSE SELECTION

We construct an extensive form game that captures competitive markets with adverse selection. It allows firms to offer any finite set of contracts, so that cross‐subsidization is not ruled out. Moreover, firms can withdraw from the market after initial contract offers have been observed. We show that a subgame perfect equilibrium always exists. In fact, when withdrawal is costless, the set of equilibrium outcomes may correspond to the entire set of feasible contracts. We then focus on robust equilibria that continue to exist for small withdrawal costs. We show that the Miyazaki–Wilson contracts are the unique robust equilibrium outcome.     

Entrepreneurship and Social Capital: Examining the Association in Deprived Urban Neighbourhoods

Spatial approaches to examining entrepreneurship have increasingly built on theories of social capital. However, the nature and extent of local social capital in less successful deprived communities remains under researched and inadequately understood. This article examines the association between social capital and entrepreneurship in a deprived urban neighbourhood in the city of Leeds, UK as a means of contributing to an improved theoretical understanding of how space moderates this association. It is found that social capital has a strong association with patterns of entrepreneurship in deprived urban neighbourhoods, with the potential impacts being both positive and negative. The forms of social capital are found to differ from that found in more affluent localities, with a prevalence of bonding social capital as the key facilitator of entrepreneurship, which may help in the early stages of venture development, but which over time may become a constraint. Also, a lack of the bridging social capital associated with entrepreneurial success is found within the locality. From a policy perspective, it is recommended that policymakers responsible for entrepreneurship in deprived urban neighbourhoods should seek to enhance initiatives for developing social capital which incorporate local businesses, residents and local government agencies.     

The causal effect of the number of children on gender‐specific labour supply elasticities to the firm

We estimate the effect of the number of children on the female and the male wage elasticities of labour supply to the firm using instrumental variables estimation in data from the US Current Population Survey (2000–19). Parents' number of children is instrumented with the sex mix of their first two children. We find that the male wage elasticity of labour supply to the firm significantly increases with the number of children, while the female elasticity is not significantly altered. That is, we find evidence that male labour markets become more competitive with the arrival of children. Our results also show that firms have substantial monopsonistic power and, in line with the monopsony theory of the gender pay gap, that male labour markets are more competitive than female markets.     

Managers' Innovations and the Structuration of Organizations

Drawing on interview data from managers in three organizations a theoretical framework based on structuration theory is offered for understanding the social construction of innovation in a way that overcomes the duality of individual and structural perspectives that fragments the literature on innovation and other related domains. Three case studies, one from each organization, illustrate and help link the elements of an argument that focuses first on how an organization's openness to its external environment allows for conflicting interpretations of necessary action. Individual agents exploit the ambiguity, making choices which help sustain or develop their self-identities, drawing on experience to shape innovations that promise to reconcile the constraints of the personal and organizational domains. Their capacity to transform circumstances in the desired direction depends on the extent to which they can deploy personal and organizational resources to negotiate appropriate meanings through social and political relationships with relevant others. The socio-political process and the substance of the innovation have reciprocal effects, yielding the possibility of agreement on a ‘working innovation’ which, once institutionalized, modifies the existing system and structures in ways that constrain, in new modes, the behaviours of all of those involved     

Synergies in destination image management: a case study and conceptualisation

This paper addresses the question of how operators and destination authorities work within a destination region, illustrating a method by which the problems resulting from different geographical scales and objectives of business units can be tackled through co‐operative marketing within a strong destination image. Following a review of the literature, a case study covering the research underpinning a cooperative marketing programme involving hotels in Port Douglas, Tropical North Queensland (TNQ) is presented. The research methodology is outlined. The policy implications of the findings for the State Tourist Organisation and for organisations involved in destination image management are considered, and a conceptual model of cooperative marketing at the destination level is proposed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.