Jacob R. Fooks

Conserving Spatially Explicit Benefits in Ecosystem Service Markets: Experimental Tests of Network Bonuses and Spatial Targeting

Conserving contiguous areas often enhances environmental benefits. However, most conservation efforts are incentive-based and voluntary, and neither reward landowners for contiguity nor do they select based on contiguity. Thus, achieving optimal contiguity of conserved parcels is unlikely. Using lab and artefactual field experiments, this paper evaluates two mechanisms in the context of reverse auctions for achieving optimal contiguity: network bonuses and spatial targeting. Results suggest that spatial targeting alone improves the aggregate environmental and social welfare outcomes, while network bonuses alone result in worse outcomes. The interaction of the bonus effect and the targeting effect is positive. If a program was already using a competitive auction environment with bonuses, adding spatial targeting could reduce welfare loss.

Consumer demand for local honey

How to best target and attract niche market consumers is an important marketing problem for producers of specialty agricultural products. It is particularly an issue in the honey market where consumers increasingly face media messages regarding threats to honey bee health, honey adulteration and health benefits of locally produced honey. Using auction experiments, this research evaluates consumer behaviour related to informational messages about honey that is produced locally, domestically and internationally. Results from 115 adult consumers show that consumers’ demand for honey varies significantly based on the geographic location of the honey’s production, product packaging and the information they have about the product. Consumers demonstrate greater demand for locally produced honey, especially when provided information about negative aspects of internationally produced honey that include adulteration. This shows that such negative media attention on specialty products offers small producers an opportunity to increase profitability by marketing themselves as a specialized niche alternative.

Dynamic Entry, Reverse Auctions, and the Purchase of Environmental Services

This research uses economic experiments to examine the effectiveness of reverse auction institutions in an endogenous dynamic entry setting. Induced values are used to compare behavior in dynamic and static auction structures. Past research on this topic has understudied dynamic elements such as strategic entry and endogenous bidder selection that arise in a dynamic environment. The results suggest complex behavioral patterns in which some sellers overenter early and others strategically wait. This affects the owners’ abilities to extract rents in a dynamic setting. This result impacts policy effectiveness because previous work overlooking these dynamic elements likely understates auction cost-effectiveness. (JEL Q24, Q57)

Measuring and Mitigating HIV Stigma: A Framed Field Experiment

Stigma against those living with HIV can undermine efforts to prevent the spread of the disease, but it has traditionally been hard to measure or to assess the efficacy of antistigma educational efforts. Using a framed field experiment involving adult participants in rural Kenya, this research measures HIV stigma as the amount of compensation demanded through a second-price auction to complete tasks involving objects handled by an HIV-positive person. By varying educational messages, we show that both perceived transmission risk and negative judgment of those with the disease underlie this stigma. Messages that overcome fear of transmission and that disassociate people living with HIV/AIDS from behaviors considered immoral are both effective, reducing avoidance behavior by up to 50%.

Are There Efficiency Gains from the Removal of Natural Resource Export Restrictions? Evidence from British Columbia

Log export bans (LEBs) are a popular development tool utilised by developing nations with sizable endowments of timber; however, the actual impact of these policies is debatable. British Columbia has a developed forestry sector and still maintains a LEB. This trade restriction continually creates conflicts with Canadas international trade partners, including the United States. This paper examines the efficiency implications of a hypothetical removal of roundwood export restrictions in British Columbia using roundwood price and quantity data from 1995 to 2008. A time‐series econometric approach is utilised to determine supply and demand elasticities for British Columbias roundwood. Empirical results from a vector error correction model suggest that a removal of export restrictions will generate an overall increase of approximately

Tourist Viewshed Externalities and Wind Energy Production

347.91 million US dollars per year to British Columbias forest economy.

The Effects of Climate Change Information on Charitable Giving for Water Quality Protection: A Field Experiment

This study uses an experiment where ferry passengers are sold hotel room “views” to evaluate the impact of wind turbines views on tourists’ vacation experience. Participants purchase a chance for a weekend hotel stay. Information about the hotel rooms was limited to the quality of the hotel and its distance from a large wind turbine, as well as whether or not a particular room would have a view of the turbine. While there was generally a negative effect of turbine views, this did not hold across all participants, and did not seem to be effected by distance or hotel quality.

Maximizing conservation and in-kind cost share: Applying Goal Programming to forest protection

This study uses a field experiment involving 251 adult participants to determine which messages related to climate change, extreme weather events, and decaying infrastructure are most effective in encouraging people to pay more for investments that could alleviate future water-quality risks. The experiment also assesses whether people prefer the investments to be directed toward gray or green infrastructure projects. Messages about global warming induced climate change and decaying infrastructure lead to larger contributions than messages about extreme weather events. The results suggest that people are likely to pay more for green infrastructure projects than for gray infrastructure projects.