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This paper characterizes the ivory demand in Japan, formerly, the largest consumer country of ivory, by imports of worked ivory since 1970. During the entire period, the preference parameters, each of which represents the elasticity of the marginal rate of substitution, suggest that a change occurred in 1989, when the African elephant was listed in the CITES Appendix I. We conduct hypothesis tests on the differences in consumer preferences for observation periods before and after 1989. We show that Veblen effects caused the increasing shift of the demand in the first period, meaning that ivory products were more preferred as their price increased. They were purchased even though the price continued to rise before the trade ban intervened. The Veblen effects disappeared in the second period when the demand became homogeneous of degree zero. Due to public awareness of illegal trade and endangered elephants, the quantity of the demand for worked ivory quickly declined. The price has fluctuated unpredictably since the 2000s, and a small amount of worked ivory is imported at a high price because of the unavailability of ivory products. Prohibition could influence the social preference for wildlife products from which domestic demand is formed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an urgent need for the development of environmentally sustainable products market in developing economies, particularly in South Africa due to increasing ecological externalities and risk. We use a stated preference method to examine the heterogeneous demand for ecologically sustainable products. A hybrid latent class model was employed to account for the inclusion of attitudinal information, potential endogeneity and measurement errors. The empirical estimates demonstrate that majority of the respondents attach significant monetary values to meat products with minimal environmental impacts in terms of water and carbon footprint values. We found three heterogeneous consumer segments, with distinct utilities and monetary values attached to water and carbon footprint attributes. Furthermore, the findings show that consumers' choice and valuation of the sustainability attributes significantly relate to their fundamental attitudes towards the environment and sustainable practices, as well as their knowledge towards environmental sustainability. The use of economic incentives as a mechanism to ensure environmental sustainability is feasible in South Africa. The empirical framework used offered a theoretical advantage in terms of endogeneity bias and measurement error, relative to the traditional latent class model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Switching to more energy-efficient appliances may lead to higher energy demand. This phenomenon is known as the rebound effect, which may lead to less power saving than expected prior to the switch. Using a combination of propensity score matching with the difference-in-differences method, we examine the change in household electricity consumption that may be caused by replacing air conditioners with more energy-efficient ones. Based on the results of our estimations, we calculate the magnitude of the rebound effect for summer and winter. We find that the rebound effect is positive in summer and winter, and the magnitude is higher in winter (7.87% versus almost 100%, respectively). The estimated rebound effect is small in summer, implying that the power-saving effect due to switching to energy-efficient air conditioners is sizable. On the other hand, no power-saving effect due to the switch was found in winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market shares for organic products remain modest despite broad professed consumer interest in purchasing organic products. We use counterfactual product introductions in an estimated demand model to systematically explore the links between product assortment and the market share for organic products. The demand estimates on which we base the counterfactuals use 3 years of household panel data on retail coffee purchases in Sweden, combining household’s stated and revealed behavior in a discrete choice model. The predicted market shares of new organic products are highly dependent on which brand that the organic label partners with. Introduction of a new organic product is predicted to increase in-sample organic market share from around 5% up to a maximum of around 8%. The market expansion effect dominates the market stealing effect for almost all entrants. The largest market share gains for organic products are not to be had amongst the keenest organic households, but rather amongst the moderately keen organic households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines consumer survey data on seven agricultural products (rice, apples, cucumbers, beef, pork, eggs, and shiitake mushrooms) from regions near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDNP) to determine which factors and attributes affect consumers' purchasing behavior, as measured using the contingent valuation method. We found that consumers who prioritize food safety believe that the risk of radiation contamination became high after the Fukushima nuclear incident. These consumers, who live at a distance from the FDNP and have children under the age of 15, require a higher discount rate to accept agricultural products from regions near the power plant. Conversely, our study indicated that consumers who trust the current safety standards for radioactive material concentrations in food are knowledgeable about radiation and radioactive materials, have high environmental consciousness, and are older that are more likely to purchase products from regions near the plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential water demand has long been an important topic of empirical research. How to estimate water waste, however, has rarely been touched. Using the stochastic frontier approach, this article jointly estimates the residential demand for water and water waste in Taiwan, where water resources are scarce and unevenly distributed throughout the island and across seasons. The empirical results confirm that residential water demand is closely related to household characteristics and the overuse of water is affected by environmental variables. The estimated price and income elasticities are below 0.1 in absolute value. The estimated amount of wasted water is around 83 L per capita per day, which is roughly 1/3 of the actual water consumption. It is also shown that overlooking the waste of water use results in an over-estimation of the subsistence water requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the literature on emission inequality is abundant, this study differentiates itself by focusing on emission inequality at the household-level. We further separate measures on emission inequality based on household characteristics as well as decompose it into sources of emission. The results show that as per capita expenditure increases, within group emission inequality tends to decline until the middle-income group but then further increase in expenditure worsens emission inequality. We also find that expenditure inequality is the predominant driver of emission inequality although recent increases in expenditure inequality have not lead to a commensurate increase in emission inequality. The decomposition of inequality based on emission sources suggests that energy-transportation predominantly contributes of the overall emission inequality; reducing the emission intensity of these sources would serve to lower emission inequality substantially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop and test a model of social comparison in which individuals gain status through green consumption relative to the green consumption of their peers and in which they strategically choose their peers so as to maximize total utility. In our framework consumers first choose their peers and associated green reference standard, taking into account that later this will affect the benefits and costs of green consumption choices. By using a unique set of survey data, we find evidence consistent with our framework of green status seeking and endogenous green reference standards. Environmental concern is found to have an important indirect effect on green consumption choices as it implies a more ambitious reference standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 3 years of data from the 47 prefectures of Japan, we estimate the behavior of households that simultaneously make discrete decisions about vehicle ownership and continuous decisions about driving distance. We use the estimated parameters to calculate elasticities and to simulate the effects of alternative pollution control policies such as taxes on gasoline, distance, or particular cars. Given choices about cars and distance, we also calculate emissions. Since we model simultaneous choices, both the chosen distance and the chosen car can be affected either by a tax on distance or by a tax on car characteristics. We find expected signs for coefficients on price and income. Car choices are relatively inelastic, however, either to taxes on cars or to taxes on gas or distance. Thus, emissions are more affected by taxes on gasoline than by taxes on particular vehicles. Yet, taxes on cars have lower costs on consumers and thus lower marginal cost of abatement. Given that the existing gas tax already achieves some abatement, mostly through driving reduction, this analysis suggests that further abatement from the use of distance-reducing taxes is more costly than achieving some marginal abatement from induced changes in car choices. The option with the lowest cost is to tax each car at a rate proportional to its emission rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2002, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) established a voluntary environmental program called the Climate Leaders (CL) Program. Participating firms developed greenhouse gas emissions inventories, set emissions reductions goals, and annually reported progress toward those goals. While the program was not designed to function as an eco-labeling program, one possible motivation for participation in the program was to positively influence consumer perceptions for firm products and services. USEPA discontinued the CL program in 2011. In this study, data from a contingent choice experiment from a national online survey are used to examine whether the CL program could have been effectively adopted as a consumer product labeling program. Results suggest that consumers are willing to pay more for refrigerators manufactured by CL program participants and that willingness-to-pay is influenced by both respondent characteristics and attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) includes an article on the mandatory provision for environmental and resource costs and benefits in pricing water services. Valuing water resources-e.g., regarding water quality, water availability, ecology, and biodiversity-is therefore an increasingly important topic for all water-related policies, such as the provision of drinking water, waste-water treatment, hydrological engineering, and ship transport. The current study provides empirical evidence on a specific river restoration project in the Danube National Park (Austria) combining improvements in water quality, the reduction of flood risks, and ecological benefits in terms of providing improved groundwater and flooding dynamics in the adjacent wetlands. Our study allows us to test whether willingness-to-pay (WTP) bids of respondents for such programs are different between two identical surveys employed in different years, and between two scenarios differing in scope. The results are encouraging regarding the (short-term) temporal stability of preferences for river restoration. Except for minor differences which are not statistically significant, we find empirical (econometric) indications that WTP bids were roughly in the same order of magnitude between the two surveys. The results of the paper suggest that from the viewpoint of temporal stability, WTP bids may be reasonably transferred over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]