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Publications (51)
Social interactions are widely recognized as a potential influence on risk-related behaviors. We present a mediation model in which social interactions (classified as formal/informal and generic/fire-specific) are associated with beliefs about wildfire risk and mitigation options, which in turn shape wildfire mitigation behaviors. We test this mode...
Wildfire is a persistent and growing threat across much of the western United States. Understanding how people living in fire‐prone areas perceive this threat is essential to the design of effective risk management policies. Drawing on the social amplification of risk framework, we develop a conceptual model of wildfire risk perceptions that incorp...
Three causes have been identified for the spiraling cost of wildfire suppression in the United States: climate change, fuel accumulation from past wildfire suppression, and development in fire-prone areas. Because little is likely to be performed to halt the effects of climate on wildfire risk, and because fuel-management budgets cannot keep pace w...
Kenney, Melissa A., Peter R. Wilcock, Benjamin F. Hobbs, Nicholas E. Flores, and Daniela C. Martínez, 2012. Is Urban Stream Restoration Worth It? Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(3): 603‐615. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00635.x
Abstract: Public investment in urban stream restoration is growing, yet little has been do...
This paper explores the effect of payment and provision uncertainty in a threshold provision mechanism. Utilizing the upper bound of a rational subject's contribution (i.e. option price), our theoretical investigation summarizes that the explanation of hypothetical bias relies on the relative importance between payment and provision uncertainty. Th...
We examine the issues of hypothetical bias, demand revelation, and gender differences in a threshold public goods experiment
with heterogeneous induced-values. First, we find no evidence of hypothetical bias in our threshold provision public goods
experiments, despite the fact this is an open-ended type mechanism. Our results support recent experim...
Background/Question/Methods Stream restoration projects are intentional manipulations of the stream environment to achieve a range of benefits including infrastructure protection, water quality improvements, and aesthetic and recreation improvements. To achieve these anticipated benefits, billions of dollars annually spent on stream restoration pro...
Motivated by efficiency and equity concerns, public resource managers have increasingly utilized hybrid allocation mechanisms that combine features of commonly used price (e.g., auction) and non-price (e.g., lottery) mechanisms. This study serves as an initial investigation of these hybrid mechanisms, exploring theoretically and experimentally how...
We examined the reliability of a large set of paired comparison value judgments involving public goods, private goods, and sums of money. As respondents progressed through a random sequence of paired choices they were each given, their response time decreased and they became more consistent, apparently fine-tuning their responses, suggesting that r...
This paper reports the results of a stated preference study that estimates the economic value for cleaning up acid rock drainage in Colorado's Snake River watershed. In contrast to much of the existing literature, the present study emphasizes benefit estimation for three implementing projects rather than benefit estimation for general changes in wa...
Conventional analysis of public goods provision aggregates individual willingness to pay while treating income as exogenous, ignoring the fact that we generate income to allow us to purchase utility-generating goods. We explore the implications of endogenizing the labor/leisure decision by explicitly considering leisure demand in a model of public...
The Okavango Delta is a large wetland safari destination in north-western Botswana. Given that future threats to its water supply may affect the biodiversity of this ecosystem, it was important to elicit a value of the Delta from the tourism sector and assess how biodiversity influences that value. This paper presents a valuation of visitors' prefe...
We examine the effect of gender on real and hypothetical contributions in a threshold public goods experiment using heterogeneous induced-values approach. Our analysis of the experimental data leads to several findings. First, gender differences in contributions are found for hypothetical payments, but not for real payments. This result is obtained...
Two recent stated preference studies include questions that explore participants’ beliefs regarding the cost amount stated in the valuation question in relation to the cost to them if the project were implemented. Results from these studies suggest that a significant proportion of people do not believe these stated cost amounts. This paper explores...
Real-time lectures recorded on video and streamed over the Internet are a useful supplement to non-classroom learning. However, because recording confines the instructor to the podium, the classroom experience is diminished when there is less social interaction. This study uses choice experiment data to estimate economics students' willingness to p...
In-depth interviews conducted with homeowners in five Colorado wildland–urban interface communities reveal that the homeowners face difficult decisions regarding the reduction of wildfire risk. Rather than seeing risk reduction as straightforward, homeowners appear to be involved in a complex decision-making process with social considerations. The...
This study examines how lessons produced with an electronic whiteboard, video recorded, and delivered by Internet streaming, affect student satisfaction in undergraduate economics. Survey results show students enjoy the non-classroom experience of streaming and watching lecture videos. However, because video recording confines the instructor to the...
The multiple-bounded uncertainty choice (MBUC) value elicitation method allows respondents to indicate qualitative levels of uncertainty, as opposed to a simple yes or no, across a range of prices. We argue that MBUC responses convey subjective probabilities. We examine the decision process of the researcher faced with estimating population paramet...
Serious practice of nonmarket valuation requires a working knowledge of the economic theory because it forms the basis for
the explicit goals in any nonmarket valuation exercise. This chapter provides readers with the requisite theory to meaningfully
apply the nonmarket valuation techniques.
The paper describes ways to examine how digital libraries are valued by their users, and explores ways of permitting the allocation of resources to areas of user-identified need. Pertinent models from marketing, economics, and library assessment and evaluation are reviewed, focussing on the application of the LibQUAL+TM and CAPM methodologies. Each...
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was established in 1968 and requires mandatory flood insurance for property owners who have federally backed mortgages. Krutilla (1966) noted that a compulsory national flood insurance program could greatly improve the economic efficiency of flood plain occupancy in the United States. However, in order to...
We empirically investigate the effect of the payment mechanism on contingent values by asking a willingness-to-pay question with one of three different payment mechanisms: individual contribution, contribution with provision point, and referendum. We find statistical evidence of more affirmative responses in the referendum treatment relative to the...
This article provides an overview of evaluation studies for libraries, a brief introduction to the CAPM Project, a description of the theoretical background for the CAPM methodology and, finally, a discussion of the implementation of the methodology for the CAPM Project.
A new natural resource damage assessment paradigm has been suggested that emphasizes direct analysis of compensatory restoration rather than analysis of compensating variation for damages. This article considers whether money can be avoided in damage assessment. The analysis of compensatory restoration leads to the conclusion that money should be c...
Bergstrom showed that a necessary condition for a Pareto optimum with non-paternalistic altruism is classification as a selfish Pareto optimum. This paper shows that Bergstrom’s result does not generalize to the benefit–cost analysis of generic changes in public goods. There may exist good projects that will be rejected by a selfish-benefit cost te...
The CAPM Project features the development and evaluation of an automated, robotic on-demand scanning system for materials at remote locations. To date, we have developed a book retrieval robot and a valuation analysis framework for evaluating CAPM. We intend to augment CAPM by exploring approaches for automated page turning and improved valuation....
Contingent valuation (CV) has become one of the most widely usednon-market valuation techniques. CV's prominence is due to itsflexibility and ability to estimate total value, includingpassive use value. Its use and the inclusion of passive use valuein benefit-cost analyses and environmental litigation are thesubject of a contentious debate. This pa...
Contingent valuation (CV) has become one of the most widely used non-market valuation techniques. CV's prominence is due to its flexibility and ability to estimate total value, including passive use value. Its use and the inclusion of passive use value in benefit-cost analyses and environmental litigation are the subject of a contentious debate. Th...
Contingent valuation (CV) has become one of the most widely used non-market valuation techniques. CV's prominence is due to its flexibility and ability to estimate total value, including passive use value. Its use and the inclusion of passive use value in benefit-cost analyses and environmental litigation are the subject of a contentious debate. Th...
This paper establishes several propositions concerning the importance of context in valuing public goods. It first provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the value of a public good to be independent of context. Utility-constant valuation sequences are considered where public goods are systematically made available or taken away. For the c...
The relationship between income and willingness to pay for collectively provided public/environmental goods is investigated. We show that while the income elasticity of willingness to pay and the ordinary income elasticity of demand are related, knowledge of one is insufficient to determine the magnitude or even the sign of the other. The income el...
In this paper, I reconsider the use of Hicks neutrality for recovering total value for a change in an environmental good. I clarify the need to adjust expenditures and explain how numerical techniques can be used in approximating these adjustments. I show that the circumstance believed to support Hicks neutrality, weak neutrality at the choke price...
Just as individuals have preferences regarding the various goods and services they purchase every day, they also hold preferences regarding public goods such as those provided by the natural environment. However, unlike private goods, environmental goods often cannot be valued by direct reference to any market price, which makes economic analysis o...
A literature search provides 83 studies from which 616 comparisons of contingent valuation (CV) to revealed preference (RP) estimates are made. Summary statistics of the CV/RP ratios are provided for the complete dataset, a 5 percent trimmed dataset, and a weighted dataset that gives equal weight to each study rather than each CV/RP comparison. For...
We consider sequences where a subset of public goods are systematically being created or destroyed. For the case of strict Hicksian substitutes between all pairs of this subset of public goods, we show that willingness to pay for an increase in a particular public good is strictly decreasing the farther out in a sequence it is valued. For the destr...
Short Abstract: This paper examines the incentive properties of probabilistic referenda. In contrast to earlier research in which prices and quantities are perfectly correlated, we consider uncertain and potentially different outcomes for prices and quantities. We provide a theoretical analysis on incentive compatibility and an induced-value experi...
