JEL classification: C53 D62 Q40 Q48 Q51Keywords: Meta-regression Renewable energy Green electricity Valuation Willingness to pay a b s t r a c t Using renewable energy for domestic consumption has been identified as a key strategy by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Critical to the success of this strategy is to know whether consumers are willing to pay to increase the proportion of electricity generated from renewable energy in their electricity portfolio. There are a number of studies in the literature that report a wide range of willingness to pay estimates. In this study, we used a meta-regression analysis to determine how much of the variation in willingness to pay reflects true differences across the population and how much is due to study design, such as survey design and administration, and model specification. The results showed that factors that influence willingness to pay, such as renewable energy type, consumers' socio-economic profile and consumers' energy consumption patterns, explain less variation in willingness to pay estimates than the characteristics of the study design itself. Because of this effect, we recommend that policy makers exercise caution when interpreting and using willingness to pay results from primary studies. Our meta-regression analysis further shows that consumers have significantly higher (C. Ma). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2015.07.003 0928-7655/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 94 C. Ma et al. / Resource and Energy Economics 42 (2015) 93-109willingness to pay for electricity generated from solar, wind or generic renewable energy source (i.e. not a specific source) than hydro power or biomass.
We survey farmers to determine their willingness to adopt carbon farming practices Farmers are most likely to adopt practices that support production objectives Farmers consider improved soil quality as the most important benefit from carbon farming Best-Worst Scaling revealed preferences for retaining stubble and no-till cropping Policy uncertainty is a barrier to farmers' participating in carbon farming policy programs
Restoration scientists and practitioners have recently begun to include economic and social aspects in the design and investment decisions for restoration projects. With few exceptions, ecological restoration studies that include economics focus solely on evaluating costs of restoration projects. However, economic principles, tools, and instruments can be applied to a range of other factors that affect project success. We considered the relevance of applying economics to address 4 key challenges of ecological restoration: assessing social and economic benefits, estimating overall costs, project prioritization and selection, and long-term financing of restoration programs. We found it is uncommon to consider all types of benefits (such as nonmarket values) and costs (such as transaction costs) in restoration programs. Total benefit of a restoration project can be estimated using market prices and various nonmarket valuation techniques. Total cost of a project can be estimated using methods based on property or land-sale prices, such as hedonic pricing method and organizational surveys. Securing continuous (or long-term) funding is also vital to accomplishing restoration goals and can be achieved by establishing synergy with existing programs, public-private partnerships, and financing through taxation.
An extensive literature exists on environmental nonmarket valuation research. It appears that results from these studies should be useful inputs to decision-making about environmental policy or management. Here, we investigate the extent to which this occurs in practice in Australian environmental management bodies. Nonmarket valuation experts were surveyed about their studies that they believed to have influenced policy. Then, decision-makers in environmental bodies were interviewed about the level of influence nonmarket valuation has had on their decisions. We find that researchers' perceptions of the influence that nonmarket valuation has on decision-making are overly optimistic. Interviews with decision-makers suggest that nonmarket valuation is little used in decision-making. Indeed, the majority of them are unfamiliar with nonmarket valuation techniques. Nevertheless, once the concept was explained to them, many decision-makers believed it could benefit environmental policy. Researchers' perceptions of the reasons for low usage of nonmarket valuation are largely inaccurate. We suggest a range of strategies that economists can use to promote the use of nonmarket valuation in environmental policy and management decisions, including ways to improve communication and engagement with decisionmakers, and strategies to increase the capacity for decision-makers to use nonmarket valuation results.
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