Barbara Kanninen

INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS: AN ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ASSESSMENT

This paper discusses the congestion relief and environmental impacts expected of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) based on a qualitative assessment of the incentives generated. It uses theoretical and empirical results from the literature to evaluate the private and externality impacts of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS), Automated Highway Systems (AHS) and Intelligent Transit Systems and discusses the appropriate role of the public sector in their development based on these impacts. It is argued that although ITS are intended to improve system efficiency, the technologies may, in fact, exacerbate the existing, economic inefficiencies in the surface transportation system and that policies to correct these inefficiencies become all the more crucial as we consider implementation of ITS. Several policies that target environmental externalities are discussed as possible complements to ITS.

Putting a value on injuries to natural assets: The BP oil spill

Stated-preference research supports

Identifying Financial Incentive Designs to Enhance Participation in Weight Loss Programs

17.2B in protections When large-scale accidents cause catastrophic damage to natural or cultural resources, government and industry are faced with the challenge of assessing the extent of damages and the magnitude of restoration that is warranted. Although market transactions for privately owned assets provide information about how valuable they are to the people involved, the public services of natural assets are not exchanged on markets; thus, efforts to learn about peoples values involve either untestable assumptions about how other things people do relate to these services or empirical estimates based on responses to stated-preference surveys. Valuation based on such surveys has been criticized because the respondents are not engaged in real transactions. Our research in the aftermath of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill addresses these criticisms using the first, nationally representative, stated-preference survey that tests whether responses are consistent with rational economic choices that are expected with real transactions. Our results confirm that the survey findings are consistent with economic decisions and would support investing at least

Contingent valuation: Flawed logic? Response

17.2 billion to prevent such injuries in the future to the Gulf of Mexicos natural resources.

A Retrospective Stated Preference Approach to Assessment of Coastal Infrastructure Investments: An Application to Barbados

Background: Financial incentives are routinely recommended to attract participants to weight loss programs; however there is a paucity of research that uses a systematic approach to determine incentive packages that may be most beneficial in increasing program reach or participation. Methods: The purpose of this study was to determine monetary incentive designs (in terms of magnitude, form, and timing of payment) that could increase the likelihood of participation in weight loss programs. Participants (n=863) completed surveys to collect stated preferences regarding to the magnitude, timing, and form of monetary incentives as well as willingness to participate in a weight loss program. Results: The results of our model show that, as expected, higher values of monetary incentive will increase the participation. Additionally, more flexible forms of payments (cash or grocery card as compared to gym pass or copay waiver) and more immediate payments (monthly as compared to quarterly payments) will enhance the participation in a weight loss program. Further, our second model, with respondent demographic interaction terms, shows significant differences between various groups of male participants (healthy, overweight, and obese males). This simply means that each group of male participants requires different incentive design to achieve a desired level of participation. The results do not show significant differences in incentive preference across women in different weight categories, which implies that the same monetary incentive design could be used for all women to achieve a given participation rate in a weight loss program. Conclusion: It is critical to carefully construct incentive packages offered in weight loss programs to enhance program reach. A one-size-fit-all weight loss program incentive design that ignores potential nuances in participation decisions are unlikely to be as successful in maximizing programs’ reach as programs that provide customized designs to attract different cohorts of people.

Valuing shifts in the distribution of visibility in national parks and wilderness areas in the United States.

Baron questions the methods and conclusions of our contingent valuation study, which assessed the economic value to the American public of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In the study, survey respondents were each randomly assigned to be told about either (i) a set of effects of the oil

Bias in Discrete Response Contingent Valuation

Ex-post economic impact evaluations are standard requirements for loans and grants from multilateral international development institutions. In many cases, however, lack of sufficient baseline or historical data, or the very nature of the investment itself renders orthodox economic impact evaluation approaches unviable. Nonetheless, evaluations are required to provide an indication of the benefits generated by the investment and insights for future program design. Addressing this challenge, this paper develops an ecosystem service, retrospective stated preferences approach to assess the benefits of a coastal infrastructure investment in Barbados. Results show that the investment generated cultural and aesthetic ecosystem service benefits for tourists and residents, and that local businesses derived value and avoided some damage costs from the enhancement of regulatory ecosystem services. The approach is versatile facing data constraints and generates policy-relevant information to support decisions to scale up interventions, catalyze additional investment, and provide data on user preferences that can be incorporated in the design of future interventions.

Modeling Response Incentive Effects in Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Data

Environmental regulations often have the objective of eliminating the lower tail of an index of environmental quality. That part of the distribution of environmental quality moves somewhere above a threshold and where in the original distribution it moves is a function of the control strategy chosen. This paper provides an approach for estimating the economic benefits of different distributional changes as the worst environmental conditions are removed. The proposed approach is illustrated by examining shifts in visibility at Class I visibility areas (National Parks and wilderness areas) that would occur with implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys Regional Haze Program. In this application we show that people value shifts in the distribution of visibility and place a higher value on the removal of a low visibility day than on the addition of a high visibility day. We found that respondents would pay about

Design of Sequential Experiments for Contingent Valuation Studies

120 per year in the Southeast U.S. and about

Total economic value for protecting and restoring Hawaiian coral reef ecosystems final report

80 per year in the Southwest U.S. for improvement programs that remove the 20% worst visibility days.