Stephen K. Swallow

• University of Connecticut

Using the concept of PES, the Bobolink Project moves environmental economics research beyond measuring values and into the development of efficient markets to capture those values and maximize their ability to support ecosystem services (ES). Beginning in Rhode Island and then expanding to Vermont, the project employed a novel approach, where crowd...

We present experimental results on the provision of multiple units of a threshold public good using individualized price auctions (IPA). The IPA asks each individual to pay the same price for each unit provided. The individual’s price can be either one’s bid or one’s pivotal price on the marginal unit provided by the group. The public good is provi...

We introduce a novel auction, a uniform price auction with screening criteria, for acquiring private land to provide ecosystem services. The screening criteria is designed to classify ecosystem service suppliers (bidders) into two groups and is determined so that a bidder can not influence which group she is assigned to. The results of the screenin...

Innovative market mechanisms are being increasingly recognized as effective decision-making institutions to incorporate the value of ecosystem services into the economy. We present a field experiment that integrates an economic auction and a biophysical water flux model to develop a local market process consisting of both the supply and demand side...

We report a two-year field experiment that solicited residents of Jamestown, Rhode Island, USA, to fund contracts with farmers willing to provide public goods associated with improving the nesting success of grassland birds, particularly the Bobolink. This experiment explores the potential to leverage valuation research for the purpose of enhancing...

This paper reports on a real money, economic experiment in which a broad group of ecological scientists were challenged to consider their own values within an economic framework, by considering whether to contribute financially (i.e., to donate) to support a global research initiative designed to investigate the implications of global change for gr...

Most land use surveys of exurban residents focus on eliciting preferences for residential development and open space conservation. This paper, in contrast, reports on a stated preference study of exurban residents that assesses the relative attractiveness of a variety of commercial and recreational land uses. Focus group participants and town plann...

Communities in exurban areas increasingly rely on land preservation as a strategy to balance sprawling land development with maintaining environmental amenities. Based on a review of existing approaches for preserving land, we consider a conceptual model of environmental impact fees (EIFs) coupled with conservation payments for managing private lan...

We introduce two novel mechanisms for provision point public goods, motivated by the design of uniform price auctions: The uniform price auction mechanism (UPA) collects an endogenously determined uniform price from everyone offering at least that price, while the uniform price cap mechanism (UPC) collects the uniform price from everyone offering a...

We introduce two institutions that provide multiple public good units, assuming that a market- maker has the ability to establish groups of contributors. We set up an experiment where either all N individuals form one group to provide two units (aggregated approach), or divide the N participants into two groups, and each group provides one unit sep...

This paper develops a method that incorporates the public value for environmental cobenefits when a conservation buyer can purchase water quality credits based on nonmarket valuation results. We demonstrate this approach through an experiment with adult students in a classroom laboratory environment. Our application contributes to the study of indi...

The United States has been experiencing extensive rural land conversion associated with suburbanization and urban sprawl in many local areas. Among the social and economic issues associated with urban sprawl is the potential negative impact of rural land conversion and low-density development on local environmental amenities. With effectively irrev...

In discrete choice experiments, survey participants are often asked to consider stated cost, to themselves, as a source of funding of an environmental project. An open question remains whether participants would consider an additional source of funding, such as public or federal support. We examine the impact of federal funding availability on the...

The conversion of natural areas to human-dominated land uses results in loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitat which often lead to species endangerment and local extinction. The risk of endangerment may be particularly acute for species that exist as metapopulations in which viability of the species is contingent upon dispersal of...

We consider the choice experiment approach to valuation, due to its focus on tradeoffs between alternatives. Our study is not hypothetical, but implements a real-payment choice experiment (CE) for a multi-attribute good. We use two real wetland parcels to create over 18 descriptions of parcels for conservation under a 10-year development-rights con...

Environmental economists invest in measuring the value of the environment but put less effort toward integrating that value directly into the economy. Experimental economists evaluate the performance of mechanisms to fund public goods but in some cases offer limited insight into practical implications for developing markets. This discussion present...

The nonexcludable nature of public goods generates a need to find better approaches for determining the appropriate level of production while simultaneously setting prices that will lead to provision of the good. We discuss a practical method to implement an individualized pricing approach to public good provision, grounded in Lindahl's marginal be...

We design two institutions that collect individual contributions to provide multiple public good units, inspired by a problem to deliver ecosystem services as a step-level public good (delivered in discrete increments). We set up a public good experiment wherein either all individuals for one group and are responsible for providing the two units (a...

no endorsement by any funding agency. RI AES contribution no. XXXX. TIMBER ROTATIONS ON NON-INDUSTRIAL PRIVATE FORESTS WHEN OWNERS HAVE ACCESS TO NEIGHBORING ECOSYSTEMS Because non-industrial private forests (NIPFs) comprise over 60 % of forestland, NIPF owners may substantially affect timber supply and ecosystem quality. A dynamic model shows that...

Recent declines in amphibian populations have raised concern among conservation biologists, with habitat loss and degradation due to human activities among the leading causes. The most common policies used to protect the habitat of pond-breeding amphibians are wetland regulations that safeguard the wetland itself. However, many amphibians spend muc...

Exurban areas have increasingly become zones of conflict as conservation and development compete for the same finite land resources. Conversion of natural areas to land dominated by human use results in loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitat which often lead to species endangerment or even extinction. Recently, reserve site select...

Research on public good auctions is intended to initiate development on new approaches to finance public goods, beyond government and philanthropic efforts. The researchers evaluate the potential to identify economic value for a subset of ecosystem services and markets that have the potential to provide for them. Empirical analysis focuses on publi...

We set forth an argument for the integration of social science research with natural science and engineering research in major research infrastructure investments addressing water science. A program of integrated observation of water resources offers great opportunities to address several environmental “grand challenges” identified by the National...

This paper considers how six alternative rebate rules affect voluntary contributions in a threshold public-good experiment. The rules differ by (1) whether an individual can receive a proportional rebate of excess contributions, a winner-takes-all of any excess contributions, or a full rebate of one's contribution in the event the public good is pr...

Random parameters logit models have emerged as a standard approach in estimating public preferences for a range of goods and services. However, to simplify calculation of welfare measures, the marginal utility of income is often assumed to be constant across the population. We show that by shifting distributional assumptions from marginal utilities...

An effective nature reserve network design should reflect the ecological requirements of target species, while simultaneously considering costs. In this study, we propose a design method that considers the ecological role of the spatial arrangement of reserve sites in relation to the long-term persistence of metapopulations of the target species. W...

Agriculture conventionally supplies food, fiber and fuel that consumers can purchase through the market. With the right incentives, farmers can also provide ecosystem services such as wildlife habitat, climate regulation, surface water flows and waste absorption and breakdown. Such incentives have so far come almost entirely from government-sponsor...

Alternative funding approaches affect stated preferences. An individual’s willingness to reallocate existing tax dollars exceeds willingness to pay new taxes to conserve land. However, stated preferences also imply a non-zero opportunity cost to existing tax dollars; different income groups reveal statistically equivalent marginal utilities both fo...

The public has increasingly demonstrated a strong support for open space preservation. Questions left to local policy-makers are how local governments can finance preservation of open space in a politically desirable way, whether there exists an optimal level of open space that can maximize the net value of developable land in a community and that...

States and municipalities have committed over $24 billion in bond issues for land conservation in recent years, yet the structure of the land conservation industry and markets is poorly understood. Using a stated choice experiment survey, we examine the role of public access in willingness to pay (WTP) for coastal land conservation. We identify com...

Development in rural-urban fringe communities is increasing with the potential to damage healthy ecosystems and endanger the long-term persistence of resident flora and fauna. The environmental impacts of development include loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitat, increased air and water pollution, increased soil erosion, and decr...

Benefit transfer has been an important, practical policy tool appealing to government agencies, especially when time or budget is constrained. However, the literature fails to support convergent validity of benefit transfer using the stated-preference method. This empirical study conducts four convergent validity assessments of benefit transfer usi...

This paper discusses resistance to wastewater management programs in coastal communities. Innovative stated preference survey responses are used to rank the importance of private onsite benefits, water quality protection, environmental perceptions, and treatment responsibility. Resistance becomes strategic when treatment responsibility is heterogen...

Establishing habitat corridors has been an important strategy in many conservation practices. Nonetheless, the existing literature has ignored the role habitat corridors could play in reserve network design. Based on modern ecological theory, the effectiveness of a reserve system largely depends on its connectivity, but it is less clear how recent...

Laws concerning government accountability mandate that agencies weigh constituent interests in setting priorities. This study extends literature on the value of research by considering the public's stated preferences for scientist-effort allocated across an Agricultural Experiment Station's research portfolio. Over 75% of respondents expressed a wi...

Human activities continue to eliminate or degrade wetlands that provide rich habitat for many species. Compensatory mitigation, including creation of new wetlands, restoration of previously degraded wetlands, or preservation of existing wetlands, is one policy option that seeks to maintain no net loss of wetland habitat. Public support of wetland m...

Benefit transfer has been an important, practical policy tool appealing to government agencies, especially when time or budget is constrained. However, the existing literature fails to support convergent validity of benefit transfer using the stated-preference method. This empirical study examines the convergent validity of benefit transfer using t...

The rural public may not only be concerned with the consequences of land management; residents may also have systematic preferences for policy instruments applied to management goals. Preferences for outcomes do not necessarily imply matching support for the underlying policy process. This study assesses relationships among support for elements of...

New residents of rural communities are often assumed to have preferences for development and conservation that differ from those of longer-term residents. However, the literature offers little to quantify presumed preference heterogeneity. This article assesses whether stated preferences differ according to length of residency. Results are based on...

This paper examines whether and how survey respondents react to spatial factors in stated preference surveys, and the ways in which preferences for spatial factors may influence welfare estimation. Alternative proposals to develop rural lands for residential purposes in southern New England were studied. Results illustrate that spatial attributes c...

Efforts to value particular dimensions of environmental quality may misrepresent true social values if dimensions of environmental quality interact and researchers nonetheless seek to value single dimensions in isolation. While prior work illustrates that substitution among environmental improvements may occur, questions remain regarding the practi...

International environmental organizations propose voluntary eco-labeling as a market incentive to promote industry to operate in an ecologically sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. A microeconomic analysis questions whether voluntary eco-labeling will cause producer profits in a competitive industry to decline and whether eco-labeling...

This paper reports on a choice experiment where respondents stated their preferences for different wetland parcels. The study used hypothetical surveys to measure respondents' preferences, but in one survey version respondents expected and received a follow-up question involving real monetary payments. The results indicate that those respondents wh...

Newer residents of rural, urban-fringe communities are often assumed to have preferences for the development and conservation of rural lands that differ from those of longer-term residents. The existing literature offers little to verify or quantify presumed preference shifts. This paper provides a systematic, quantitative examination of whether st...

Recent environmental regulations raise the importance of accurate, survey-based methods to estimate environmental values, while interviewing costs stimulate research to improve dichotomous choice survey methods. This paper proposes using strength-of-preference indicators along with dichotomous contingent response data. We model strength-of-preferen...

International environmental groups propose to implement new standards of forest management through programs that certify producers who meet criteria to enhance biodiversity or sustainability. These producers could earn an "eco-label" that identifies their products for consumers. We consider whether a market economy might generate feedbacks that pro...

This paper reports on a contingent choice study in which residents of a rural Rhode Island community were asked to express their preferences for packages of growth management outcomes, where surveys presented both spatial and non-spatial attributes of growth management outcomes. Survey results provide insight on the extent to which estimated willin...

This study reports on a contingent choice survey in which respondents expressed their preferences for packages of watershed management outcomes, where these packages were assessed against alternative institutional characteristics of the funding mechanism. Specifically, this study addresses the issue of respondents' faith in the payment mechanism as...

This paper explores potential focus shift asymmetries in an ordered strength of preference model applied to contingent choice data. A focus shift occurs when respondents weight factors differently when assessing preference for an "accepted" scenario than they do when assessing preference for a "rejected" scenario, and may imply that respondents do...

This study reports on a survey assessment of the public preferences for the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment Station's research program. The study summarizes preferences to allocate effort to alternative research projects and estimates the public's willingness to pay to maintain or increase research effort.

Coastal lands provide popular outdoor recreation opportunities including beach recreation, fishing, boating, and wildlife viewing. Published studies measuring the demand for access to coastal lands generally have focused on the recreational value of intensively used beaches, which comprise only a portion of the New England coastline. This article e...

This paper studies the preferences and willingness-to-pay of individuals for volunteer water quality monitoring programs. The study involves supporting water quality monitoring at two ponds in the state of Rhode Island. The paper uses both a hypothetical and a real-payment contingent valuation survey to directfy measure individual preferences and w...

“Ecosystem management” complicates forest management considerably. In this paper we extend the economic analysis of forestry to capture both the temporal and the spatial dimensions, allowing optimization of timber harvest decisions throughout an ecosystem. Dynamic programming simulations illustrate the implications for the simplest ecosystem, consi...

Ecosystem management may extend multiple use management, where economists identify and value a complex mix of ecosystem outputs. The dominant theme in conservation biology favors "safe minimum standard" (SMS) constraints on ecosystem attributes, which respond to complex and purely uncertain ecological knowledge and lead economists toward valuation...

Despite the many important uses (and potential abuses) of focus groups in survey design, the CV literature presents few guidelines to aid moderators in their interaction with focus group participants. This paper draws on the theory and practice of ethnographic interviewing to introduce general guidelines that can improve focus groups as an aid to C...

This paper addresses tradeoffs in wetland development using a framework that integrates economic theory of renewable and nonrenewable resources. The theory treats wetland development as use of a nonrenewable resource, while wetland preservation protects critical fishery habitat. The framework recognizes that wetland quality may vary for either deve...

Resource managers often ignore economic information in decisions about recreational use of fish and wildlife resources. By evaluating within-season harvest regulations, economists can identify strategies to improve recreational benefits without compromising management objectives represented in an annual harvest quota. Theoretical analysis raises a...

In many studies of nonmarket resources, economists have data to disaggregate results according to subpopulations within the full study population. Disaggregated results can increase the usefulness of economic analyses, improve public confidence in the results, and permit public officials to assess equity concerns. We outline an approach to obtain d...

Forestry models often ignore spatial relationships between forest stands. This paper isolates the effects of stand interactions in multiple-use forestry through a straightforward extension of the single-stand model. Effects of stand interactions decompose into wealth and substitution effects and may cause time-varying patterns of resource use for a...

This paper develops a model that provides an objective framework for evaluating the concerns often cited by members of nearby communities and other state residents when potential sites for solid waste landfills are evaluated. An empirical version of the model is estimated using preference data collected in a paired comparison survey of Rhode Island...

This paper describes an approach to facility siting that ranks potential sites in terms of their social impacts. A contingent choice survey based on paired comparisons is used to construct a utility index to rank sites consistent with predicting results of a hypothetical referendum based on the attributes of the sites. The method is likely to be ac...

Policymakers anticipate strong local opposition to undesirable land-uses, such as large-scale landfills, and therefore seek new methods for selecting sites. This paper develops an approach that integrates the technical, economic, and political concerns relevant to siting decisions, beginning with identification of alternative sites and extending th...

This paper synthesizes familiar theories of nonrenewable and renewable resource economics in a two-sector, partial-equilibrium analysis of efficient trade-offs between renewable resource production and environmental development. The irreversible impacts of coastal zone development provide a motivating example. While development proceeds, the effici...

This paper challenges common assumptions about convexity in forest rotation models which optimize timber plus nontimber benefits. If a local optimum occurs earlier than the globally optimal age, policy based on marginal incentives may achieve suboptimal results. Policy-relevant nonconvexities are more likely if (i) nontimber benefits dominate for y...

A marginal cost pricing (MCP) policy for a publicly produced good leads to politically unacceptable price fluctuations when economies of scale exist in plant construction. A partial equilibrium analysis of water supply defines a general, optimal, constant price for water which is a weighted average of the annual marginal short run and capacity expa...

Current recommendations for snag management, which focus on characteristics of individual snags or stocking levels in forests managed for timber production, not only obscure the importance of forest characteristics surrounding a potential nesting site but also fail to meet the management objectives or abilities of the small landowner. During the su...

Concern over the condition of the world's forests has led to proposals for new standards of sustainable forest management, the argument being that new practices will enhance the overall viability of the forests. Although the initial concerns focused on the problem of high rates of deforestation in the tropics, in recent years much of the attention...

Typescript. Thesis (M.S.)--Duke University, 1986. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-58).