The Handbook on Contingent Valuation is unique in that it focuses on contingent valuation as a method for evaluating environmental change. It examines econometric issues, conceptual underpinnings, implementation issues as well as alternatives to contingent valuation. Anna Alberini and James Kahn have compiled a comprehensive and original reference volume containing invaluable case studies that demonstrate the implementation of contingent valuation in a wide variety of applications. Chapters include those on the history of contingent valuation, a practical guide to its implementation, the use of experimental approaches, an ecological economics perspective on contingent valuation and approaches for developing nations.
Economists, psychologists, and marketers are interested in determining the monetary value people place on non-market goods for a variety of reasons: to carry out cost-benefit analysis, to determine the welfare effects of technological innovation or public policy, to forecast new product success, and to understand individual and consumer behavior. Unfortunately, many currently available techniques for eliciting individuals' values suffer from a serious problem in that they involve asking individuals hypothetical questions about intended behavior. Experimental auctions circumvent this problem because they involve individuals exchanging real money for real goods in an active market. This represents a promising means for eliciting non-market values. Lusk and Shogren provide a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice of experimental auctions. It will be a valuable resource to graduate students, practitioners and researchers concerned with the design and utilization of experimental auctions in applied economic and marketing research.
From the Olympics to the World Cup, mega sporting events are a source of enjoyment for tens of thousands, but can also be a source of intense debate and controversy. This insightful new Handbook addresses a number of central questions, including: How are host cities selected and under what economic conditions? How are these events organized, and how is local resistance overcome? Based on historical and empirical experience, what are the pitfalls for the organizers of these events? What are the potential economic benefits, including any international image effects? How can the costs be minimized and the benefits maximized for host cities and countries? How do these mega events impact the challenges of globalization and what is their environmental legacy? Compiled and edited by two internationally renowned sports economists, the expert contributions elaborate on the specific mechanisms of the bid processes, analyse the determining factors of winning bids, and illustrate how to construct future bid campaigns. Underpinned by case studies from four continents and by theoretical considerations, the reasons for seemingly systemic cost overruns are explored and analysed, as are the effects on national and regional employment and income, property values, non-traditional economic variables (such as psychological and marketing benefits) and urban branding and transformation. The Handbook also reflects on important elements of design of the games in order to better plan, prepare and allocate resources – including, for example, sustainability issues and the use of campaigns to secure positive perceptions. This book provides an up-to-date analysis of the financing and economic impact of mega sporting events, as well as a full discussion of how host cities can maximize the benefits from their experience. As such, it will prove a fascinating read for academics, students, researchers and policymakers with an interest in economics and public sector economics generally, and more specifically, in the economics of sport.
Law and the State provides a political economy analysis of the legal functioning of a democratic state, illustrating how it builds on informational and legal constraints. It explains, in an organised and thematic fashion, how competitive information enhances democracy while strategic information endangers it, and discusses how legal constraints stress the dilemma of independence versus discretion for judges as well as the elusive role of administrators and experts. Throughout the book, empirical evidence and comparative studies illuminate sometimes provocative theoretical views on issues such as: the place of the rule of law in constitutional and banking systems; regulation of copyright, art and heritage; innovations and technologies of communication and information; terrorism and media manipulation. Both private and public law, applied and theoretical issues are covered comprehensively. Academics and researchers of law and economics and public choice will find much to challenge and inform them within this book.
Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment analyzes the changing economic and demographic environment in which social insurance programs that benefit elderly households will operate. It also explores how these ongoing trends will affect future beneficiaries, under both the current social security program and potential reform options. In this volume, an esteemed group of economists probes the challenge posed to Social Security by an aging population. The researchers examine trends in private sector retirement saving and health care costs, as well as the uncertain nature of future demographic, economic, and social trends—including marriage and divorce rates and female participation in the labor force. Recognizing the ambiguity of the environment in which the Social Security system must operate and evolve, this landmark book explores factors that policymakers must consider in designing policies that are resilient enough to survive in an economically and demographically uncertain society.
This title was first published in 2003.Over the decades, experiential methods have become an established research tool in environmental economics. Economists working in this area have realised that experimental methods from economics and other disciplines such as psychology and decision theory can be applied to gain insight into the behavioral underpinnings of environmental policy. Economic experiments, in the lab and field, are an attractive tool to address the incentive and contextual questions that arise in environmental policy. Experiments have been and continue to be designed to capture the key elements of market and non-market choices to test theory, for pattern recognition, to testbed new institutions, and to value public goods, including environmental protection. This volume collects the most significant papers in the literature that identify the underpinnings of experimental approaches are complemented by works that specifically address the use of experimental economics to identify choice under risk, conflict, cooperation, environmental policy instruments, and environmental valuation
After a discussion of the methodological issues involved in experimental economics, the author provides accounts of particular experimental investigations covering individual and interactive behaviour and testing game and bargaining theory, decision-making under uncertainty, auctions and markets.
'This volume is a welcome and timely contribution to a topic of enduring importance. The global consequences of recent food price crises underscore the need to examine food security issues from diverse perspectives. This volume meets that need, featuring accessible yet cutting-edge analyses of food security by leading experts in fields as diverse as trade, nutrition, public health, production, political economy, and behavioral economics. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and practitioners.' --Steven Block, Tufts University, US. 'This excellent volume offers a compact but wide-ranging survey of recent research on important changes in global food markets. Its 20 chapters accurately capture important areas of scholarly agreement as well as on-going debates among economists studying agriculture and nutrition, with several provocative original contributions from other fields. The book draws particularly on the authors' long experience in Asia, offering widely-applicable insights for scholars and policy analysts seeking to understand the past, present and future of food around the world.' --William A. Masters, Tufts University, US. The global population is forecasted to reach 9.4 billion by 2050, with much of this increase concentrated in developing regions and cities. Ensuring adequate food and nourishment to this large population is a pressing economic, moral and even security challenge and requires research (and action) from a multi-disciplinary perspective. This book provides the first such integrated approach to tackling this problem by addressing the multiplicity of challenges posed by rising global population, diet diversification and urbanization in developing countries and climate change. It examines key topics such as: the impact of prosperity on food demand, the role of international trade in addressing food insecurity, the challenge posed by greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land degradation, the implication on labor markets of severe under-nutrition, viability of small scale farms, strategies to augment food availability. The Handbook on Food would be a welcome supplementary text for courses on development economics, particularly those concentrating on agricultural development, climate change and food availability, as well as nutrition.
Mandatory pensions are a worldwide phenomenon. However, with fixed contribution rates, monthly benefits, and retirement ages, pension systems are not consistent with three long-run trends: declining mortality, declining fertility, and earlier retirement. Many systems need reform. This book gives an extensive nontechnical explanation of the economics of pension design. The theoretical arguments have three elements: * Pension systems have multiple objectives--consumption smoothing, insurance, poverty relief, and redistribution. Good policy needs to bear them all in mind. * Good analysis should be framed in a second-best context-- simple economic models are a bad guide to policy design in a world with imperfect information and decision-making, incomplete markets and taxation. * Any choice of pension system has risk-sharing and distributional consequences, which the book recognizes explicitly. Barr and Diamond's analysis includes labor markets, capital markets, risk sharing, and gender and family, with comparison of PAYG and funded systems, recognizing that the suitable level of funding differs by country. Alongside the economic principles of good design, policy must also take account of a country's capacity to implement the system. Thus the theoretical analysis is complemented by discussion of implementation, and of experiences, both good and bad, in many countries, with particular attention to Chile and China.
The quantification of how aspects of a job are valued by employees sheds light on the potential for labor market reform in Japan. Using a nationwide sample of 1,046 working-age adults, we conduct a choice experiment that examines individuals’ willingness to trade wages against job characteristics such as the extent of overtime, job security, the possibility of work transfer and relocation. Our results suggest that: i) workers have high WTP (willingness to pay) to avoid extreme overtime and work transfer, ii) women have higher WTP than men, and iii) higher WTP for women are driven in part by feelings of guilt.
