Pallab Mozumder

Willingness to pay for safe drinking water: evidence from Parral, Mexico.

A referendum-format contingent valuation (CV) survey is used to elicit household willingness to pay responses for safe and reliable drinking water in Parral, Mexico. Households currently adopt a variety of averting and private investment choices (e.g., bottled water consumption, home-based water treatment, and installation of water storage facilities) to adapt to the existing water supply system. These revealed behaviors indicate the latent demand for safer and more reliable water services, which is corroborated by the CV survey evidence. Validity findings include significant scope sensitivity in WTP for water services. Further, results indicate that households are willing to pay from 1.8% to 7.55% of reported household income above their current water bill for safe and reliable drinking water services, depending upon the assumptions about response uncertainty.

Lease and Fee Hunting on Private Lands in the U.S.: A Review of the Economic and Legal Issues

This review highlights current economic and legal issues relating to lease and fee hunting on private lands in the United States. Recreational hunting leases provide an important practical example of the potential of market-based conservation to create win-win arrangements among rural landowners and hunters. Research suggests that there are significant positive values and economic impacts from fee and lease hunting. Results show that many national trends for hunting on public land and private lands are declining; however, there are important exceptions to those trends (e.g., big game hunting) and differences across states. Given hunting quality on public land, hunters often express a willingness to pay significantly higher than the price charged on private land. Further, institutional innovations can remove legal barriers and positively affect lease and fee hunting on private land. Future research needs include further regional comparisons, case studies on institutional arrangements, as well as additional hedonic pricing and preference studies.

Investigating hypothetical bias: induced-value tests of the referendum voting mechanism with uncertainty

Following Taylor et al . (2001), we design an induced-value experiment to test for hypothetical bias in a referendum voting mechanism. In our experiment, the level of benefit from the public good increases with the number of Yes votes (conditional on the referendum passing by majority rule). This is intended to introduce uncertainty. In contrast to Taylor et al . (2001), we find evidence of significant hypothetical bias in a referendum voting mechanism, when the level of benefits is uncertain. A cheap-talk treatment is shown to eliminate this bias.

Facilitating adaptation to global climate change: perspectives from experts and decision makers serving the Florida Keys

Slivers of land amidst the world’s third largest barrier reef, the Florida Keys provide unique insights on the emerging challenges associated with adaptation to global climate change. While political will and public awareness are gradually shifting on the imposing risks, analysis of survey responses from experts and decision makers serving the Florida Keys (federal, state and local personnel) reveals insufficient resources, limited direction and leadership, and lack of institutional frameworks to facilitate the adaptation process. Against this backdrop, we investigate experts and decision makers’ interest in an array of adaptation measures including their willingness to support a proposed ‘Community Adaptation Fund’ (CAF) to mobilize resources and lay the foundation for adaptation initiatives in the Florida Keys. We also explore potential funding sources for establishing the proposed CAF, and test the feasibility of a diverse set of financing mechanisms. We discuss implications of our findings in the context of enhancing adaptive capacity in the Florida Keys and beyond.

Provision of a Wildfire Risk Map: Informing Residents in the Wildland Urban Interface

Wildfires in the wildland urban interface (WUI) are an increasing concern throughout the western United States and elsewhere. WUI communities continue to grow and thus increase the wildfire risk to human lives and property. Information such as a wildfire risk map can inform WUI residents of potential risks and may help to efficiently sort mitigation efforts. This study uses the survey-based contingent valuation (CV) method to examine annual household willingness to pay (WTP) for the provision of a wildfire risk map. Data were collected through a mail survey of the East Mountain WUI area in the State of New Mexico (USA). The integrated empirical approach includes a system of equations that involves joint estimation of WTP values, along with measures of a respondents risk perception and risk mitigation behavior. The median estimated WTP is around U.S.

Understanding household preferences for hurricane risk mitigation information: evidence from survey responses

12 for the annual wildfire risk map, which covers at least the costs of producing and distributing available risk information. Further, providing a wildfire risk map can help address policy goals emphasizing information gathering and sharing among stakeholders to mitigate the effects of wildfires.

Private transfers to cope with a natural disaster: evidence from Bangladesh

Risk information is critical to adopting mitigation measures, and seeking risk information is influenced by a variety of factors. An essential component of the recently adopted My Safe Florida Home (MSFH) program by the State of Florida is to provide homeowners with pertinent risk information to facilitate hurricane risk mitigation activities. We develop an analytical framework to understand household preferences for hurricane risk mitigation information through allowing an intensive home inspection. An empirical analysis is used to identify major drivers of household preferences to receive personalized information regarding recommended hurricane risk mitigation measures. A variety of empirical specifications show that households with home insurance, prior experience with damages, and with a higher sense of vulnerability to be affected by hurricanes are more likely to allow inspection to seek information. However, households with more members living in the home and households who live in manufactured/mobile homes are less likely to allow inspection. While findings imply MSFH programs ability to link incentives offered by private and public agencies in promoting mitigation, households that face a disproportionately higher level of risk can get priority to make the program more effective.

Can Payments for Environmental Services Strengthen Social Capital, Encourage Distributional Equity, and Reduce Poverty?

Based on multiple rounds of household survey data collected in the year after the 1998 massive flooding in Bangladesh, we investigate the role of private transfers as a social coping response to natural disasters. We also explore the role of private transfers (gifts) as an informal insurance mechanism to smooth consumption in the face of an adverse covariate shock caused by the flooding. The level of transfers made is shown to be altruistically calibrated to the severity of flood exposure. As an indicator of the economic importance of such gifts, the amount of transfers received is shown to significantly contribute to reducing household consumption variability. We discuss the policy implications of our findings in a developing country context.

Understanding Hurricane Evacuation Planning in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States

This study examines the relationship between the Mexican payment for environmental services (PES) programme, social capital and collective action, equity in distribution of benefits, and poverty alleviation in a case study in the Sierra Norte region of the state of Oaxaca. We address these issues with a household survey in two communities; and survey and ethnographic data on the six-community organisation - the Natural Resource Committee of the Upper Chinantla (CORENCHI). We suggest that the Mexican common property agrarian system greatly facilitates payments to entire communities of rights holders who then have the potential to build on existing social capital through having to make decisions about the use of their common property. Much of the work on social capital, distributional equity, and poverty alleviation has been theoretical or speculative but our study provides empirical support for part of this work. We find that PES in these communities has strengthened social capital and collective action, including in the emergence of regional collective action in the inter-community organisation. We also find that the PES payments are perceived as fair by the communities because of the high degree of participation in distributional policies, with a modest positive effect on a multidimensional measure of poverty.

An empirical analysis of hurricane evacuation expenditures

AbstractThis study investigates planned evacuation logistics, including primary destination and means of transportation, in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. Using responses to an Internet-based survey from a random sample of over 1,000 individuals, the authors estimate a number of probit and multinomial probit models to identify factors associated with the likelihood of having a hurricane evacuation plan, potential usage of public transportation to evacuate, and the primary evacuation destination. Survey results indicate that less than 36% of the respondents have an evacuation plan. Findings also indicate that most respondents would evacuate in their own vehicle to the home of a friend or a relative. About 19% would evacuate to a hotel, and less than 11% would go to a public shelter. Less than 5% of the respondents would use public transportation to evacuate. Evacuation planning is found to be associated with prior evacuation experiences, economic conditions, location, and household compos...