Hank C. Jenkins-Smith

Information and effort in contingent valuation surveys: application to global climate change using national internet samples ☆

This contingent valuation study investigates the issues of information access and respondent effort, and is based on a series of national Internet samples. The focus is on a split-sample treatment, Basic Information (BI) versus Enhanced Information (EI). In the latter, significantly expanded information is provided about global climate change and the Kyoto Protocol. Using a referendum format, we compare the treatment effect (BI versus EI) on willingness to pay (WTP). We develop measures of respondent effort in accessing optional information, through the technology of Web-based surveys, and jointly model effort and WTP using a simultaneous estimation approach. Results support the use of the joint modeling approach for objective measures of respondent effort and WTP. Respondent effort is shown to be positively and significantly related to WTP. However, use of the optional menu is rather modest (counts of pages and time spent), and is highly variable (both across pages and respondents).

Foreign and Domestic Policy Belief Structures in the U.S. and British Publics

Scholars have made little progress in exploring the degree to which research on belief structures among Americans may be generalizable to other political systems and geopolitical contexts. The distribution and structure of mass beliefs related to nuclear security, missile defenses, and nuclear energy issues in the United States and Great Britain are analyzed using data from telephone surveys simultaneously administered in both countries. In foreign and domestic areas, the British and American belief systems vary chiefly in the central tendencies of the beliefs held but not in the structural relationships among those beliefs. Findings provide evidence for a hierarchical model of policy beliefs with differential adjustments based on situational conditions, but also raise questions about the kinds of conditions—geopolitical and institutional—that give rise to these similarities.

The Effect of Environmental Disclosure Requirements on Willingness to Pay for Residential Properties in Borderlands Community

This study examines the effect of environmental information disclosure requirements on future real estate transactions. The setting involves pollution from a concrete products and quarrying site near a largely Hispanic, residential community. Copyright (c) 2003 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

Mass and Elite Views on Nuclear Security: US National Security Surveys 1993-1999

This is the fourth report in an ongoing series of studies examining how US perspectives about nuclear security are evolving in the post-Cold War era. In Volume 1 the authors present findings from a nationwide telephone survey of randomly selected members of the US general public conducted from 13 September to 14 October 1999. Results are compared to findings from previous surveys in this series conducted in 1993, 1995, and 1997, and trends are analyzed. Key areas of investigation reported in Volume 1 include evolving perceptions of nuclear weapons risks and benefits, preferences for related policy and spending issues, and views about three emerging issue areas: deterrent utility of precision guided munitions; response options to attacks in which mass casualty weapons are used; and expectations about national missile defenses. In this volume they relate respondent beliefs about nuclear security to perceptions of nuclear risks and benefits and to policy preferences. They develop causal models to partially explain key preferences, and they employ cluster analysis to group respondents into four policy relevant clusters characterized by similar views and preferences about nuclear security within each cluster. Systematic links are found among respondent demographic characteristics, perceptions of nuclear risks and benefits, policy beliefs,morexa0» and security policy and spending preferences. In Volume 2 they provide analysis of in-depth interviews with fifty members of the US security policy community.«xa0less

Insight from Public Surveys Related to Siting of Nuclear Waste Facilities: An Overview of Findings from a 2015 Nationwide Survey of US Residents

The results described in this report are an analysis of nationwide surveys, administered between 2006 and 2015, which measure preferences of US residents concerning the environment and energy sources. The Energy & Environment (EE) survey series is conducted annually by the Center for Energy, Security & Society (CES&S), a joint research collaboration of the University of Oklahoma and Sandia National Laboratories. The annual EE survey series is designed to track evolving public views on nuclear materials management in the US. The 2015 wave of the Energy and Environment survey (EE15) was implemented using a web-based questionnaire, and was completed by 2,021 respondents using an Internet sample that matches the characteristics of the adult US population as estimated in the US Census. A special focus of the EE15 survey is how survey respondents understand and evaluate “consent” in the context of the storage and transportation of spent nuclear fuel (SNF). This report presents an overview of key results from analyses of questions related to consent-based siting and other elements of the nuclear energy fuel cycle.