Godwin Kofi Vondolia

What do respondents bring to contingent valuation? A comparison of monetary and labour payment vehicles

In the contingent valuation method, both the goods being valued and the payment vehicles used to value them are mostly hypothetical. However, although numerous studies have examined the impact of experience with the good on the willingness to pay, less attention has been given to experience with the payment vehicles. This paper examines how experience with payment vehicles influence responses to a contingent valuation scenario on maintaining irrigation canals in a developing country. Specifically, the paper uses a split-sample survey to investigate the effects of experience with monetary and labour payment vehicles on the acceptance of a contingent valuation scenario, protest bids and mean willingness to pay. Using convergent validity tests, we found that the experience acquired from using both monetary and labour payment vehicles reduces the asymmetries in acceptance rates. These findings suggest that experience with payment vehicles reduces time/money response asymmetries in the contingent valuation method.

Use and Non-Use Values in an Applied Bioeconomic Model of Fisheries and Habitat Connections

ABSTRACT In addition to indirect support to fisheries, marine habitats also provide non-use benefits often overlooked in most bioeconomic models.We expand a dynamic bioeconomic fisheries model where presence of natural habitats reduces fishing cost via aggregation effects and provides non-use benefits. The theoretical model is illustrated with an application to cold-water corals in Norway where two fishing methods are considered—destructive bottom trawl and non-destructive coastal gear. Non-use values of cold-water corals in Norway are estimated using a discrete choice experiment. Both the theoretical model and its empirical applications demonstrate how non-use values impact optimal fishing practices. JEL Codes: Q22, Q28, Q57.

Bioeconomic Analysis of Habitat-Fishery Connections: Fishing on Cold Water Coral Reefs

We develop a bioeconomic model to study habitat-fishery connections such as cold water coral habitats, which are negatively affected by bottom trawling but remain unaffected by stationary gear harvest. Using dynamic optimization, we derive optimum optimorum values for both fish and cold water coral stocks. We find that when coral is a preferred habitat, the fish and coral stocks become substitutes in terms of unit cost savings of harvest, while an essential habitat implies competing cost and growth effects. Data are from the North East Arctic cod fishery, and the results are robust and in line with our theoretical prediction. (JEL Q22, Q32)

Bioeconomic model of spatial fishery management in developing countries

Fishers in developing countries do not have the resources to acquire advanced technologies to exploit offshore fish stocks. As a result, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea requires countries to sign partnership agreements with distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) to exploit offshore stocks. However, for migratory stocks, the offshore may serve as a natural marine reserve (i.e., a source) to the inshore (i.e., sink); hence these partnership agreements generate spatial externality. In this paper, we present a bioeconomic model in which a social planner uses a landing tax (ad valorem tax) to internalize this spatial externality. We found that the tax must reflect the biological connectivity between the two patches, intrinsic growth rate, the price of fish, cost per unit effort and social discount rate. The results are empirically illustrated using data on Ghana.