Stefan Borsky

The Hedonics of Hedonism – Estimating the Value of Risk-Taking Activities

This paper estimates the individual willingness to pay (WTP) for the option to exercise risk-taking. We use data of 69 Austrian Ski resorts and 3,637 reported ski accidents and apply the hedonic market method. Our results suggest that the individual WTP for a hypothetical increase in the possibility to undertake risk-taking activities lies between 11% and 25% of the price of a ski-lift-ticket. Monetized values help design pricing schemes that set incentives to reduce risk-taking behavior as well as to develop alternative instruments to reduce the adverse effects of risk-taking activities (e.g. accidents). Copyright 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Intergovernmental Interaction in Compliance with an International Environmental Agreement

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the role of intergovernmental interaction in countries’ compliance with an international environmental agreement (IEA). We use two cross-sectional data sets that contain information on signatory countries’ compliance with an IEA on responsible fisheries. Our empirical strategy is based on estimating a spatial Durbin model using a maximum likelihood procedure. The results show that compliance effort by other participants has a systematic positive effect on a country’s own compliance. We argue that these findings provide empirical evidence that intergovernmental relations can improve the performance of voluntary IEAs where other formal sanction mechanisms are absent.