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- Bostedt, Göran, 1966-, et al.
(författare)
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Acidification Remediation Alternatives : Exploring the Temporal Dimension with Cost Benefit Analysis
- 2010
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Ingår i: Ambio. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 39:1, s. 40-48
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Acidification of soils and surface waters caused by acid deposition is still a major problem in southern Scandinavia, despite clear signs of recovery. Besides emission control, liming of lakes, streams, and wetlands is currently used to ameliorate acidification in Sweden. An alternative strategy is forest soil liming to restore the acidified upland soils from which much acidified runoff originates. This cost-benefit analysis compared these liming strategies with a special emphasis on the time perspective for expected benefits. Benefits transfer was used to estimate use values for sport ffishing and nonuse values in terms of existence values. The results show that large-scale forest soil liming is not socioeconomically profitable, while lake liming is, if it is done efficiently-in other words, if only acidified surface waters are treated. The beguiling logic of "solving'' an environmental problem at its source (soils), rather than continuing to treat the symptoms (surface waters), is thus misleading.
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- Li, Chuan-Zhong, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Dynamic cost–benefit analysis of large projects : the role of capital cost
- 2010
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Ingår i: Economics Letters. - Uppsala : Elsevier BV. - 0165-1765 .- 1873-7374. ; 109:2, s. 128-130
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper derives a dynamic cost–benefit rule for evaluating large projects. We show that, in addition to the conventional income and consumer surplus measures, the rule also entails an extra term involving capital cost changes.
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- Svensson, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
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Willingness to pay for private and public road safety in stated preference studies : Why the difference?
- 2010
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Ingår i: Accident Analysis and Prevention. - Oxford, United Kingdom : Elsevier. - 0001-4575 .- 1879-2057. ; 42:4, s. 1205-1212
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Estimates of the willingness to pay (WTP) for a mortality risk reduction can be used to calculate the value of a statistical life, which is a major component in many economic evaluations of environmental and safety policies. Previous research on the WTP for risk reductions using stated preference methods have found that the mean WTP for public risk reductions is significantly smaller compared to the mean WTP for private risk reductions of equal magnitude. Hence, the use of a private or public scenario in stated preference studies of e.g. environmental or safety policies may strongly determine the outcome of the economic evaluation. In this paper we use a stated preference survey to show that WTP for a private risk reduction is three times higher compared to a public risk reduction and a significant part of the difference can be explained by respondents’ attitudes towards privately and publicly provided goods in general.
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- von Below, David, et al.
(författare)
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Last in, first out? : Estimating the effect of seniority rules in Sweden
- 2010
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Ingår i: Labour Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-5371 .- 1879-1034. ; 17:6, s. 987-997
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper we investigate whether a relaxation in seniority rules (the "last-in-first-out" principle) had any effect on firms' employment behaviour. Seniority rules exist in several countries, but consequences of seniority rules on firms' employment behaviour have not been examined previously. The "last-in-first-out" principle in Sweden was reformed in January 2001 such that employers with ten or fewer employees were allowed to exempt two workers from the seniority rule. Using an employer-employee unbalanced panel data for the period 1996-2005, we find that both hires and separations increased in small firms relative to large firms by 5%. This also implies that there were no effects on firms' net employment. Our results show that firms reacted to changes in the seniority rules, but we argue that the effects are not overwhelmingly large.
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- Walker, Brian, et al.
(författare)
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Incorporating Resilience in the Assessment of Inclusive Wealth : An Example from South East Australia
- 2010
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Ingår i: Environmental and Resource Economics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0924-6460 .- 1573-1502. ; 45:2, s. 183-202
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the consequences of changes in a system’s resilience on the sustainability of resource allocation decisions, as measured by Inclusive Wealth (IW) (Arrow et al. in Environ Resour Econ 26:647–685, 2003). We incorporate an estimate of resilience in IW by taking account of known or suspected thresholds that can lead to irreversible (or practically irreversible) changes in the productivity and value of assets and hence social welfare. These thresholds allow us to identify policies or projects that may be leading to an increased risk of decline in capital stocks (the wealth of the region). Such risks are not reflected through usual measures of current system performance, e.g. agricultural production. We use the Goulburn-Broken Catchment in south-eastern Australia as a case study to explore the significance and practicality of including resilience in inclusive wealth estimates.
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- Gren, Ing-Marie, et al.
(författare)
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Policy design for a multifunctional landscape
- 2010
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Ingår i: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-3798 .- 1436-378X. ; 10:4, s. 339-348
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Landscapes consisting of several elements, such as wetlands and forests, are multifunctional in nature and produce both market and non-market goods. The need for policies arises from the existence of non-market ecosystem services that are not traded and thereby generally not subject to economic trade-offs in landowner decision making. An efficient incentive scheme for producing both types of goods would require policy designed for each non-market good. However, this may result in high transaction costs, possibly giving second-best solutions a comparative advantage when only one non-market good is regulated. This paper demonstrates that in the Hovran catchment area in mid Sweden, which produces the non-market goods water quality, biodiversity, and scenic beauty, compensation payments for biodiversity production alone provide almost maximum total net value of all market and non-market goods. On the other hand, payments for providing scenic beauty in the form of open landscape may result in lower total net value than no compensation payment at all, due to a negative impact on water quality.
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- Kavathatzopoulos, Iordanis, 1956-
(författare)
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Robots and systems as autonomous ethical agents
- 2010
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Ingår i: INTECH 2010. - Bangkok : Assumption University. - 9789746151108 ; , s. 5-9
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- IT systems and robots can help us to solve many problems caused by the quantity, variation and complexity of information; because we need to handle dangerous and risky situations; or because of our social and emotional needs like elderly care. In helping us, these systems have to make decisions and act accordingly to achieve the goals for which they were built. Ethical decision support tools can be integrated into robots and other decision making systems to secure that decisions are made according to the basic theories of philosophy and to the findings of psychological research. This can be done, in non-independent systems, as a way for the system to report to its operator, and to support the operator's ethical decision making. On the other hand, fully independent systems should be able to regulate their own decision making strategies and processes. However, this cannot be based on normative predefined criteria, or on the ability to make choices, or on having own control, or on ability of rational processing. It seems that it is necessary for an independent robot or decision system to have "emotions." That is, a kind of ultimate purposes that can lead the decision process, and depending on the circumstances, guide the adoption of a decision strategy, whatever it may be, rational, heuristic or automatic.
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- Kavathatzopoulos, Iordanis, 1956-
(författare)
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Information Technology, democratic societies and competitive markets
- 2010
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Ingår i: An information law for the 21st Century. - Athens : Nomiki Vivliothiki.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Access of relevant information, or knowledge, is a necessary condition for finding the right solution to a problem or making the right decision. Such information triggers and maintains the psychological and societal processes lying behind the achievement of important aims for individuals and groups. Democracy demands dialog, but dialog is not possible among citizens who are totally convinced about the truth of their ideas. A participant in a dialog must have a critical attitude toward own beliefs, otherwise a common search for a better decision is not possible. IT tools can train and support unconstrained, self-critical, systematic and holistic problem solving, decision and law making. Competitive markets, like democratic societies, need access to information. Whereas well organized and strong players can guarantee it more or less for themselves the same is very difficult for consumers to achieve, like it is for citizens regarding political information. IT can easily provide information about prices, quality and other relevant aspects of products and services in the market. However, the available form, content and amount of information in the market or in politics, which are controlled by the strongest stakeholders, have as their main goal to constrain systematic and critical thinking. Therefore to take advantage of IT’s features in developing better markets and political procedures it is necessary to create rules that can guarantee it.
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