Lars Hultkrantz

Property rights and sustainable nature tourism: adaptation and mal-adaptation in Dalarna (Sweden) and Maine (USA)

Abstract Tourism is viewed in many industrial nations as an environmentally friendly way to revitalize distressed rural economies and communities. In the forest regions of Dalarna and interior Maine, hopes are pinned on nature-based tourism, with the presumption that natural capital is underutilized. This paper explores the potential and pitfalls of nature tourism as a basis for sustainable rural development in regions where most land is held privately but quasi-open access for recreation has been either a right (Dalarna) or a customary entitlement (Maine). The paper applies theories of common pool resources and impure public goods to show that both property regimes are mal-adapted for sustainable nature tourism. Limited exclusion combined with rivalness in land uses mis-aligns incentives facing landowners, tourists, and recreation businesses. Short-term effects include congestion, reduced economic opportunity, and depressed production of non-recreational goods. Longer-term effects include environmental degradation and weak incentives for value-added investment. Tourism development is further impeded by a scale mis-match between small ownerships and large efficient recreation management units. The analysis suggests that sustainable nature tourism faces four land use challenges.

National Account of Timber and Forest Environmental Resources in Sweden

This paper outlines an extension of the national account of income from forest resources in Sweden, 1987, incorporating changes in timber inventories, production of nonmarketed timber and nontimber goods, and depletion or improvement in vital environmental stocks such as soil nutrients, biodiversity and carbon sinks. The total net value added provided by forest resources and forestry labour 1987 is estimated to 22 billions SEK. This is one third more than the contribution of forestry to “ordinary” GNP.

Forestry and the bequest motive

Abstract With an overlapping generations model for trees and humans, it is shown that in a small open timber producing economy, both in a setting where the economy is planned in order to maximize an intertemporal social welfare function and in a decentralized market economy, long-term forest investments should be evaluated by their net present value. This is so provided that the existing generation has some, if even very small, concern for the well-being of the next generation. A review of empirical studies among nonindustrial private forest owners in the U.S. and in Sweden gives support to the suggestion that this mechanism, based on a “tinge of altruism,” may be more important in promoting long-term silvicultural investments than the incentives given by existing land markets.

The Behaviour of Timber Rents in Sweden, 1909 – 1990

Optimal stopping rules for timber harvesting depend on the nature of the price process. This paper examines two measures of the annual unit timber rent in Sweden; stumpage prices 1909–1990 and in unit net conversion value 1920–1989. Allowing for a post-war shift in the price level, the unit-root conjecture is rejected in a Perron test. This implies that reservation price rules can be implemented.

A note on high-speed rail investments and travelers’ value of time

High-Speed Rail (HSR) is designed for travelers with high value of time. HSR offer fast and reliable services and good possibilities for work during the journey. Surprisingly, these benefits of HSR investment proposals are often appraised by use of travel-time valuations of people who use conventional (intercity) train services. The standard approach builds on two major assumptions, linearity of demand, and that the value of time is unchanged between the “before” and “after” alternatives, i.e., that change in the average value of time of passengers can be ignored. While the first of these is well known, the second is not always observed. However, the spread of values of time between individual travelers is large and is an essential motivation for HSR investments. This note therefore considers whether the assumption that the value of time remains unchanged by the speed improvement induces any significant bias in the appraisal. We first use a modal-mix model where travelers have varying value of time to outline some conceptual points and then discuss to what extent these may affect the social profitability of three recently constructed or proposed HSR lines: Oslo- Stockholm (Norway and Sweden), Stockholm-Goteborg (Sweden) and Beijing-Shanghai Hongqiao (China). We conclude that a RoHbased evaluation of an HSR line should be complemented by a sensitivity analysis of how the outcome is affected by possible changes of the composition of travelers with different values of time.

Estimating “Gamma” for Tail-hedge Discount Rates When Project Returns Are Co-integrated with GDP

ABSTRACT Martin Weitzman has suggested a method for calculating social discount rates for long-term investments when project returns are covariant with consumption or other macroeconomic variables, so-called ‘tail-hedge discounting’. This method relies on a parameter called ‘real project gamma’ that measures the proportion of project returns that is covariant with the macroeconomic variable. We compare two approaches for estimation of this gamma when the project returns and the macroeconomic variable are cointegrated. First, we use Weitzman’s own approach, and second a simple data transformation that keeps gamma within the zero to one interval. In a Monte-Carlo study, we show that the method of using a standardized series is better and robust under different data-generating processes. Both approaches are examined in a Monte-Carlo experiment and applied to Swedish time-series data from 1950–2011 for annual time-series data for rail freight (a measure of returns from rail investments) and GDP.

Benefit-Cost Evaluation of Prevention and Early Intervention Measures for Children and Youth in Sweden

This chapter reports on an on-going effort in Sweden to create a societal benefit-cost model for evaluation of causal effects of interventions for supporting children and young people at some developmental risk. This work is motivated by needs for such evaluation tools in planning, selection and follow-up of public and private impact investments. So far, modules have been created for economic evaluation of life-course, labour-market-related outcomes, some short- and medium-term cost offsets and the value of mortality and morbidity effects. On-going work includes estimation of the willingness to pay for suicide prevention and the costs of crime. However, as indicated by two case studies that are briefly summarised, even incomplete estimates of the benefit side are sometime sufficient to indicate high societal returns of early intervention and prevention measures.

Political and economic determinants of expenditure on day services for persons with intellectual disabilities or autism [Vad förklarar variationen i kostnad per brukare i dagligverksamhet i svenska kommuner?]

ABSTRACT This study investigates whether the Swedish national entitlement legislation, which is known to be one of the most developed in Europe for persons with intellectual disabilities or autism, accomplishes its aim to provide equal quality of day services independent of location. We estimated a reduced-form model of demand and supply-side determinants of a latent quality variable for day-service programmes using panel data on expenditure per attendee for the 290 Swedish municipalities 2004–2012. We found that expenditure per attendee is among others affected by changes of the local tax base and outcome in elections to the local assemblies. These results imply that rights of persons with intellectual disabilities with regard to equal quality of day services independent of where they live are not fully honoured in budget allocation decisions made by local governments.

Analysis of cost and quality indicators of day activity service programmes in Sweden

Several countries provide day activity programmes for people with intellectual disabilities. Little is known about the quality of these programmes or about their effectiveness in providing vocational training. In this study, we analysed the distribution across Swedish municipalities of the cost per user and how this is related to five structure quality and one outcome quality variables. We observed that the expenditure per attendee varies considerably between different municipalities. Statistical analysis was used to study to what extent expenditure per user correlates with supply-side factors, (political) demand-side factors and quality indicators. This indicated that the variation of expenditure is not explained by supply-side factors only. The local tax base and other local economic and/or political circumstances are statistically significant covariates, in spite of the entitlement legislation that gives eligible persons right to services of equal quality independent of such location-specific factors. We also found that municipalities that conduct regular user surveys find reasons to, on average, spend more per user. Finally, we found that the probability for transitions to employment at a regular workplace is higher in municipalities where as an annual routine, a review is made of whether each participant can be offered an internship or work.