A frequent justification in the literature for using stated preference methods (SP) is that they are the only methods that can capture the so-called total economic value (TEV) of environmental changes to society. Based on follow-up interviews with SP survey respondents, this paper addresses the implications of that argument by shedding light on the construction of TEV, through respondents’ perspective. It illuminates the deficiencies of willingness to pay (WTP) as a measure of value presented as three aggregated themes considering (...) respondents’ unintentionality, their retraction once they understood that their WTP could be decisive in cost-benefit analysis and the inherent incompleteness of WTP. We discuss why the TEV discourse persists, how it conceals rather than reveals broader notions of value and in what ways our results support the development of alternative approaches that truly endorse plurality in environmental valuation and decision-making. (shrink)

This study analyzed consumers' willingness to pay for non-pirated computer software and examined how attitudes toward intellectual property rights and perceived risk affect WTPs. Two commonly used software products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, were used in the study as objects to reveal consumer assessed values. A consumer survey was administered in Taiwan and the total valid samples were 799. Respondents in this study included students from senior high schools, colleges, and graduate schools, and general consumers who were no (...) longer full-time students. The estimated average WTP for Windows was USD 58.55 and for Office was USD 53.49, much lower than the respective suggested retail prices in the market. Social norms had strong positive influences on willingness-to-pay for software products. The prosecution risk did not significantly increase WTPs for software products due to the reason that individuals who used pirated software were not at a high risk of being prosecuted. Performance risk was positively correlated to WTPs for software products. The respondents segmented into the low-WTP cluster were more likely to use pirated software than those in the high-WTP segment. Source reliability, legitimacy, technical support, and customer service were emphasized in decisions of respondents in the high-WTP segment and could be used in marketing strategies. (shrink)

By means of minimal assumptions on the individual preferences, I show that the Willingness To Pay (WTP) for both a FSD and SSD reduction of risk is the sum of a mean effect, a pure risk effect and a wealth effect. As a result, the WTP of a risk-averse decision maker may be lower than the WTP of a risk-neutral one, for a large class of individual preferences’ representation and a large class of risks.

The concept of community integrated pest management (IPM), which is well developed in Indonesia and Vietnam, was recently introduced in Nepal. However, it has not been widely practiced, due mainly to lack of financial and technical support. This study determined an individual’s willingness to pay (WTP) for community IPM training. Determinants of WTP were identified; and sample average estimates, opportunity costs of training, and probability values were used to estimate WTP for a group of households. Estimated WTP revealed that (...) individuals were in favor of community IPM, hence it could be implemented with the support of local villagers. Community IPM demand functions showed that individuals’ knowledge and awareness of pesticide pollution are crucial for implementation. The annual welfare gained by providing five days community IPM training was calculated to be US $25.23 per household. (shrink)

This study analyzed consumers' willingness to pay for non-pirated computer software and examined how attitudes toward intellectual property rights and perceived risk affect WTPs. Two commonly used software products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office, were used in the study as objects to reveal consumer assessed values. A consumer survey was administered in Taiwan and the total valid samples were 799. Respondents in this study included students from senior high schools, colleges, and graduate schools, and general consumers who were no (...) longer full-time students. The estimated average WTP for Windows was USD 58.55 and for Office was USD 53.49, much lower than the respective suggested retail prices in the market. Social norms had strong positive influences on willingness-to-pay for software products. The prosecution risk did not significantly increase WTPs for software products due to the reason that individuals who used pirated software were not at a high risk of being prosecuted. Performance risk was positively correlated to WTPs for software products. The respondents segmented into the low-WTP cluster were more likely to use pirated software than those in the high-WTP segment. Source reliability, legitimacy, technical support, and customer service were emphasized in decisions of respondents in the high-WTP segment and could be used in marketing strategies. (shrink)

With the rise of live streaming commerce, the relationship between consumers and content creators on the short-video platforms has become closer, forming a peculiar culture and language in each consumer community, which promotes the short-video platforms to become a natural breeding ground for forming consumer communities. While such communities give birth to its own language and culture from the interaction between content creators and consumers, this kind of co-creation can not only enhance the consumers’ trust to improve commodity premium space, (...) but also strengthen the ties within the community and spread the information outside the communities, and consequently, expand community scale. Based on the view of the value co-creation from the language and culture among content creators and consumers in the communities, this study starts from the point of product type, employs consumers’ Willingness to pay premium as a proxy variable of brand advocacy in the co-creation of cultural and language values in consumer communities, and conducts three single-factor experiments between two groups. By analyzing the experimental results, this study identified the influence under the potential relationship mechanism, social comparison, and found another variable that can moderate the relationship, consumer trust, portrays the relationship between the product types of the live streaming commerce and the consumers’ WoPP, and explores the mediating effect of social comparison and the moderate effect of consumer trust effect. This paper also analyzes and discusses the WoPP caused by the co-creation of cultural and language values co-created by creators and consumer communities. (shrink)

Applications of willingness to pay have shown the difficultly to discriminate between various options. This reflects the problem of embedding in both its specific sense, of options being nested within one another, and its more general sense, whereby respondents cannot discriminate between close substitutes or between more-disparate rivals for the same budget. Furthermore, high proportions of reversals between WTP-value and simple preference based rankings of options are often highlighted. Although an incremental WTP approach was devised to encourage more differentiated (...) answers and a higher degree of consistency among respondents, a theoretical basis for this approach has not been elucidated, and there is little evidence to show that this approach might indeed achieve greater consistency between explicit and implicit rankings inferred from WTP values. We address both these issues. Following our theoretical exposition, standard and incremental approaches were compared with explicit ranking in a study assessing preferences for different French emergency care services. 280 persons, representative of the French adult population, were interviewed. Half received the incremental version, the other half the standard version. Results suggest that the incremental approach provides a ranking of options fully in line with explicit ranking. The standard approach was reasonably consistent with explicit ranking but proved unable to differentiate between the five most preferred providers, as predicted by theory. Our findings suggest that the incremental approach provides results which can be used in priority-setting contexts. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the micro and macro predictors of Portuguese willingness to pay (WTP) more taxes to bolster funds channelled to the National Health Service (NHS). An online questionnaire was used to collect data from 584 Portuguese citizens. The statistical analysis was performed through the application of logistic regressions. The research shows that willingness to support increasing taxes depended on socioeconomic, behavioural, and psychological factors. The WTP more taxes to finance the NHS (...) were associated with younger ages, life satisfaction and dispositional optimism, satisfaction with the NHS performance, current perceived risk exposure, and risk orientation. Identifying and understanding the main influencing factors associated with WTP more taxes for NHS is essential to assist policy-makers in developing healthcare reforms. Decision-makers may take this opportunity to improve the NHS since those who ultimately benefit from the measures can provide an additional source of health financing. (shrink)

An experimental survey was undertakento explore the links between thecharacteristics of a moral issue, the degree ofmoral intensity/moral imperative associatedwith the issue, and people'sstated willingness to pay for policy toaddress the issue. Two farm animal welfareissues were chosen for comparison and thecontingent valuation method was used to elicitpeople's wtp. The findings of the surveysuggest that increases in moral characteristicsdo appear to result in an increase in moralintensity and the degree of moral imperativeassociated with an issue. Moreover, there was apositive (...) link between moral intensity/moralimperative associated with an issue andpeople's stated wtp for policy to address theissue. The paper discusses the relevance of thefindings of the survey in the context of thedebate concerning the relationship betweenmoral and economic values and the use of thecontingent valuation method to estimatepeople's wtp of policy options with moraldimensions. (shrink)

Remanufactured Product, as one of the low-carbon products, is turned out to be more valuable and an increasing number of countries attach much importance to it. However, the low willingness of Chinese consumers to pay for the remanufactured products makes things go harder in the Chinese market. Our research, based on the form of questionnaire, attempts to explore the factors that affect the willingness of consumers to pay for the remanufactured products though Hierarchical regression analysis. The results show (...) that population variables (age, education, occupation and income), individual subjective variables (environmental awareness, old-product preference and reliance on Made in China) and product perception variables (perceived quality risk of MP4, face issue and environmental effect of product) have marked influences on the willingness to pay for the remanufactured products. (shrink)

The motive of this study is to identify the factors influencing the willingness to pay (WTP) a premium price for socially responsible food products (SRFPs) in India. This study is based on primary survey of 398 respondents. Descriptive statistics and factor analysis have been used for data analysis. Further, logistic regression was used to examine the factors affecting the WTP a premium price for SRFPs. Results demonstrate that respondents of higher age are more likely to pay premium prices for (...) SRFPs. Male consumers are two times more likely to have higher WTP for SRFPs. WTP a premium price is significantly influenced by the consumers' reference group, pro‐environmental intention, and concern for the animals. Gender, age, consumers' reference group, pro‐environmental intention, and concern for the animals determine WTP premium prices for SRFPs. There are relatively very limited researches on this topic in emerging economies including India, where the adoption of socially responsible products is in early stage. The practical implications of this study are to help in increasing the sales of the SRFPs and producers to develop appropriate policy design. (shrink)

Financial sustainability of protected areas is one of the main challenges of management. Financial self-sufficiency is an important element in improving conservation effort in these areas. This study seeks to review best practices in recreational fee systems in different countries and to find a relevant entry fee for a wildlife sanctuary in Malaysia. The revenue of the National Elephant Conservation Center (NECC) in Kuala Gandah, Malaysia, comes from several sources, including the national government, but all these budgetary sources are strained (...) by tighter public budgets and greater demands. The present study investigates the introduction of visitor entrance fees to supplement an otherwise inadequate budget for supporting the operational costs of the sanctuary. Factor analysis and a double-bounded contingent valuation method were combined to estimate tourists' willingness to pay (WTP) the proposed entrance fee. Factor analysis showed that respondents' motivation to support the NECC with user fees is conditioned by their direct experiences with elephants, their satisfaction with NECC's educational programs and services, and other experiences it gives to users. The WTP model considered respondents' four motivation factors with their sociodemographic characteristics. Since NECC visitors arrive from both within and outside the country, this study suggests to center managers a two-tier fee structure (residents vs. nonresidents of Malaysia), based upon mean WTP estimates. This study further suggests that revenue from such an entrance fee for NECC could support the Center's management and development costs. © 2015 Elsevier B. (shrink)

The paper compares use of willingness to pay values with multi-attribute utility as ways of modelling social choice problems in the environment. A number of reasons for moving away from willingness to pay are reviewed. The view proposed is that social choice is about the integration of competing claim types (utilities, rights, social contracts and beliefs about due process). However, willingness to pay is only indirectly related to the first of these and assumes an Arrovian approach, namely (...) one in which social choice is regarded as the aggregation of people's preferences. (shrink)

Several experimental studies have reported that an otherwise robust regularity—the disparity between Willingness-To-Accept and Willingness-To-Pay—tends to be greatly reduced in repeated markets, posing a serious challenge to existing reference-dependent and reference-independent models alike. This article offers a new account of the evidence, based on the assumptions that individuals are affected by good and bad deals relative to the expected transaction price (price sensitivity), with bad deals having a larger impact on their utility (`bad-deal’ aversion). These features of preferences (...) explain the existing evidence better than alternative approaches, including the most recent developments of loss aversion models. (shrink)

Offering organic food is a new trend in the hospitality industry seeking sustainable competitiveness. Premiums and information barriers impede continued growth in organic consumption. This study aims to explore the role of comparative advertising in organic food communication. Three empirical studies were used to verify the effect of CA vs. non-comparative advertising on consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for organic food, examining how benefit appeals and consumers’ organic skepticism affects CA. The results indicate that matching CA and health (...) appeals increase consumers’ WTPP, while environmental appeals have no significant differences between the CA and NCA groups. Information persuasiveness mediates the interaction between CA and benefit appeal on WTPP. CA increases WTPP among consumers with high organic skepticism, while the interaction between CA and health appeal is only effective for low skepticism consumers. The findings unravel and explain the mechanics of how CA works in organic products, which can help restaurants, retailers and tourist destinations advertise organic food to increase consumers’ WTPP. (shrink)

Bike sharing, as an innovative travel mode featured by mobile internet and sharing, offers a new transport mode for short trips and has a huge positive impact on urban transportation and environmental protection. However, bike-sharing operators face some operational challenges, especially in sustainable development and profitability. Studies show that the customers’ willingness to pay is a key factor affecting bike-sharing companies’ operating conditions. Based on the theories of perceived value, this study conducts an empirical analysis of factors that affect (...) bike-sharing users’ willingness to pay for bike-sharing through measurement scales, user surveys, and structural equation models. We designed a five-point Likert-type scale containing 11 latent variables affecting willingness to pay and a total of 34 measurement items. We investigate bike-sharing users in China’s first and second-tier cities, with a total of 502 participants. The results show that perceived value, payment awareness, trust, and environmental awareness constitute key factors that directly affect bike-sharing users’ willingness to pay. And perceived usefulness, perceived ease-of-use, perceived cost, and perceived risk indirectly affect bike-sharing users’ willingness to pay. However, we found no significant effects of perceived entertainment on perceived value or word of mouth on willingness to pay. Our results are expected to provide theoretical and practical implications for bike-sharing programs. (shrink)

Recent research on consumer social responsibility highlights the need to examine psychological drivers of environmentally-friendly consumption choices in a global context. This article investigates consumers’ willingness to pay more for environmentally-friendly products across 28 European Union countries, using a sample of 21,514 consumers. A multigroup structural equation modeling analysis reveals significantly different patterns and relationships, in how subjective knowledge about the product's environmental impact, environmental product attitudes, and the perceived importance of the products’ environmental impact influence consumers’ WTP more (...) for environmentally-friendly products across countries. The hypothesized model predicts WTP for 20 out of 28 countries and the findings show that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is inadequate in capturing the heterogeneity of EU consumers. Hosfstede's cultural dimensions of uncertainty tolerance and individualism explain differences in WTP for environmentally-friendly products across EU countries. Business, marketing communications, and policy making implications are discussed. (shrink)

Recent research on consumer social responsibility highlights the need to examine psychological drivers of environmentally‐friendly consumption choices in a global context. This article investigates consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) more for environmentally‐friendly products across 28 European Union (EU) countries, using a sample of 21,514 consumers. A multigroup structural equation modeling analysis reveals significantly different patterns and relationships, in how (a) subjective knowledge about the product's environmental impact, (b) environmental product attitudes, and (c) the perceived importance of the products’ environmental (...) impact influence consumers’ WTP more for environmentally‐friendly products across countries. The hypothesized model predicts WTP for 20 out of 28 countries and the findings show that a “one‐size‐fits‐all” approach is inadequate in capturing the heterogeneity of EU consumers. Hosfstede's cultural dimensions of uncertainty tolerance and individualism explain differences in WTP for environmentally‐friendly products across EU countries. Business, marketing communications, and policy making implications are discussed. (shrink)

Sustainable luxury is a strategic issue for managers and for society, yet it remains poorly understood. This research seeks to clarify how corporate social responsibility actions directly and indirectly affect consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for luxury brand products, as well as how a long-term orientation might moderate these relationships. A scenario study presents fictional CSR actions of two brands, representing different luxury products, to 1,049 respondents from two countries. The results of a structural equation modeling approach (...) show that the luxury brands’ CSR actions negatively affect customer WTPP overall and for each brand. The luxury brands’ functional and symbolic value dimensions positively mediate the effects of CSR actions on WTPP, whereas social value does not. The effects of CSR actions and brand symbolic value on WTTP do not differ between countries. The effect of functional value on WTPP differs across countries, such that it is stronger for high-LTO than low-LTO cultures. Inversely, the effect of social on customer WTPP is stronger for low-LTO than high-LTO cultures. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for luxury brand managers. (shrink)

Green food has exceptional impacts in addressing food safety and environmental challenges. However, consumers' perception of green food is not substantial, which results in a decline in consumption intention. Since advertising appeals can play a bridging role in resolving information asymmetry. This study is based on self-construal theory, chooses green agricultural products images and text as experimental stimuli, and analyzes the interaction and influence mechanism between advertising appeals and consumers' willingness to pay a premium for green agricultural products through (...) three sets of experimental studies. The findings demonstrate that self-construal and green agricultural product advertising appeals interact to influence consumers' willingness to pay a premium for green agricultural products. Green perceived value is more strongly influenced by matching dependent self-construal and green advertising appeals than non-green advertising appeals. Green perceived value plays a full mediating role in this interactive effect. Green agricultural products companies should adopt different advertising strategies according to the various categories of consumers to enhance consumers' green perceived value and increase the willingness to pay a premium. (shrink)

What is the relationship between taxation and public safety? Contrary to studies suggesting that personal victimization and heightened perceptions of insecurity increase pro-social attitudes and support for state intervention in the form of greater taxation, this article argues that such concerns decrease willingness to pay taxes to address public safety. It estimates what citizens are willing to pay to reduce crime, using an original representative survey conducted in Mexico and relying on the contingent valuation method to assess the value (...) of nonmarket goods. Attitudes toward taxation are found to respond to subjective, sociotropic assessments of public safety rather than to actual risk or occurrences of individual victimization. These findings counter the conventional wisdom that demand for personal security enables greater extraction, a central proposition in classic accounts of state building. Showing that willingness to accept heavier taxation may be weakest among those who perceive the gravest need for security, the study adds precision to theories of fiscal exchange. (shrink)

In this paper an economics approach to assessing community values in health care priority setting is examined. The approach is based on the concept of ‘willingness to pay’ (WTP). Eighty two parents were interviewed with regard to three aspects of provision of child health services. For each aspect a choice of two courses of action was presented. Parents were asked which course of action they preferred and what was the maximum amount of money they would be prepared to pay (...) for this rather than their less preferred option. WTP responses are acceptable to the majority of respondents and appear to ‘behave’ in accordance witha priori expectations. A method of assessing the influence of ability to pay on preferences and WTP is outlined. Preferences and WTP do not appear to have been unduly distorted by ability to pay. Use of WTP data does have the potential to provide health care purchasers and providers with information on intensity as well as direction of the preferences of members of the community. (shrink)

As the development trend of the future housing field, green housing is an effective way to reduce pollution, save energy, and promote industrial upgrading. At the same time, the green house is of great significance to change the development mode of the construction industry and promote the sustainable development of the social economy. This study proposes a comprehensive research model to examine the influencing mechanism of residents’ intention to purchase green buildings. The proposed model is empirically tested using data collected (...) from 1,338 urban residents in China. Based on logit, probit, and ivprobit models, factors such as personal characteristics, housing price, and the number of real estate ownership are selected to conduct empirical analysis and mechanism analysis on willingness that affects consumers’ purchase of green houses. The results show that housing assets significantly affect the willingness of householders to pay for green houses. The more houses they own, the higher their willingness to pay for a green house will be. Similarly, if the housing prices are higher, householders are more willing to buy a green house. The amount of housing assets will affect the willingness of householders to pay for green housing through the way of individual happiness. In terms of the characteristics of the householder, if the householder is more educated, unmarried, his willingness to buy a green house will be stronger, and owning housing assets may affect the individual happiness due to the housing wealth effect brought by rising housing prices. People with more housing assets are more likely to have the happiness brought by higher wealth, which may affect the purchase intention of householders. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Das Ziel der vorliegenden Untersuchung ist es, die Zahlungsbereitschaft der deutschen Haushalte für Medaillenerfolge zu ermitteln. Hierzu wurden 332 deutsche Haushalte eines Online-Panels unter Verwendung der Kontingenten Bewertungsmethode befragt. Demnach wären 22,9 % der Befragten bereit, für die Förderung des Spitzensports mehr Steuern zu zahlen. Im Falle aller zahlungsbereiten bzw. zahlungsneutralen Personen liegt der Mittelwert der Zahlungsbereitschaft bei 6,86€. Die regressionsanalytischen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der individuelle und der gesellschaftliche Nutzen sowie die wahrgenommene Schuldenlast Deutschlands einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die (...) grundsätzliche Zahlungsbereitschaft haben. Einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die Höhe der Zahlungsbereitschaft haben der persönliche Profit, der gesellschaftliche Nutzen und die individuellen Steuerbelastungen. (shrink)

With the rapid development of Internet technology, sports media consumption is migrating toward streaming. The online streaming of sporting events has become the important way of copyrights holders to engage sports fans, especially young fans. Therefore, it is vital to understanding users' willingness to pay. Given that previous studies of the livestream sports broadcasts online have not dealt with users' payment intention, the originality of this study is that it explore users' motivation by combining information system research with the (...) consumer demand theory. The study aimed to examine the factors that influence users' payment intention to stream online sports by using the extended Technology Acceptance Model. Data from questionnaires completed by 330 Chinese respondents determined how perceived usefulness, ease, enjoyment, and satisfaction, influence users' WTP. Satisfaction positively correlated with users' payment intentions, impacted WTP values, mediated ease of use. The analysis also revealed the necessity for broadcast platforms to improve satisfaction and to increase payment intentions. (shrink)

BackgroundFew studies have examined factors associated with willingness of people living with HIV to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials in Sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the factors associated with participation of PLHIV in HIV treatment clinical trials research at a large urban clinical and research facility in Uganda.MethodsA mixed methods study was conducted at the Infectious Diseases Institute, adult HIV clinic between July 2016 and January 2017. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, focused group discussions with respondents categorised as (...) either participated or never participated in clinical trials and key informant interviews with IDI staff. A generalized linear model with a logit link function was used for multivariate analyses while the qualitative data were summarized using a thematic approach.ResultsWe enrolled a total of 202 and analysed 151 participants, 77 of whom were male with mean age of 41 years. The majority 127 expressed willingness to participate in treatment clinical trials if given an opportunity. At bivariate analysis, willingness to participate was significantly associated with respondents’ perception of a satisfactory compensation package, special status accorded and belief that their health status would improve while on the clinical trial. At multivariate analysis, a satisfactory compensation package and special status accorded in clinical trials remained significant. The qualitative data analysis confirmed these findings as participants valued the privilege of jumping the clinic waiting queues and spending less time in clinic, the wide range of free tests offered to trial participants, unrestricted access to senior physicians and regular communication from study team. Additionally, free meals offered during clinic visits meant that participants were not in a hurry to go back home. Barriers to participation included the perception that new drugs were being tested on them, fear of side effects like treatment failure and the uncertainty about privacy of their data.ConclusionWe found overwhelming willingness to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials. This was largely extrinsically influenced by the perceived material and health-related benefits. Investigators should pay attention to participants’ concerns for benefits which may override the need to understand study procedures and risks. (shrink)

In recent years, the concepts of charity and development aid have changed significantly. Present concepts combine direct money transfer with co-production, knowledge sharing and the development of products and services designed for the need of developing and transition economies. The concept of micro-financing is a financial service which has proven to allow for entrepreneurs in the respective countries to start up their businesses. A relatively new financial product for these countries is micro-insurance. This article deals with the question whether consumers (...) in the Netherlands are willing to donate micro-insurances and which factors influence this willingness to contribute to the non-profit micro-insurance approach of an insurance company. The data were collected with questionnaires among a sample of the Dutch population. The data have been processed in a one-way between-groups ANOVA, a paired sample t test and an ordinal regression analysis. The results show that approximately half of the Dutch consumers are willing to pay an additional amount on their insurance premium for the donation of micro-insurances. The amount of the insurance premium did, however, not affect the willingness to donate. If consumers could choose the beneficiary less people are willing to donate, yet those people are willing to donate more money. In conclusion, there is readiness among consumers to contribute to micro-insurance via an insurance company that assists in setting up micro-insurance projects. This indicates a possible role for companies to act as an intermediary between philanthropic acts and consumers. (shrink)

Chinese e-commerce platforms have long helped to sell agricultural products through farmer-assisting marketing activities, effectively alleviating the problem of stagnant agricultural products in some areas, and have become a valuable cause-related marketing strategy. The ethical attributes of farmer-assisting agricultural products have unique value compared with other agricultural products. However, the existing research rarely pays attention to the influence of the ethical attributes of farmer-assisting agricultural products on consumers’ willingness to buy farmer-assisting agricultural products online. Based on collective efficacy theory (...) and risk perception theory, this study systematically explores the influence mechanism of ethical attributes on consumers’ willingness to buy farmer-assisting agricultural products online through three situational experiments. The results show that compared with functional ethical attributes, symbolic ethical attributes have a more positive impact on consumers’ willingness to buy farmer-assisting agricultural products online. In addition, it further reveals two mediating pathways of ethical effects and boundaries. This study helps to understand the ethical attributes of farmer-assisting agricultural products, and provides some practical suggestions for e-commerce enterprises implementing farmer-assisting marketing communication activities or marketers developing and promoting farmer-assisting agricultural products. (shrink)

The Patriot Act, established after the attacks of September 11, 2001, is known above all for the provisions that authorize the imprisonment, for an indeterminate period of time and without trial or even indictment, of foreigners simply suspected of terrorism. However, the law also authorizes widespread surveillance of the population. Some of the measures are permanent, while others were adopted for a period of four years. The latter, contained in sixteen articles, expired at the end of 2005.1The Patriot Act does (...) not actually contain all the statutes that are the most inimical to the freedoms and privacy of American…. (shrink)

The war against terrorism enables the implementation of techniques of exception at all stages of judicial proceedings in criminal cases, front the initiation of a lawsuit to the verdict. It thus puts into question the constitutional mechanisms intended for the protection of privacy. The type of incrimination specific w the accusation of terrorism has created a specifically political crime, i.e., the intention to exert art inappropriate form of pressure on a government or an international organization. It serves as the means (...) for a preventive attack on any process of class recomposition. We thus are witnessing a suspension of the law, which is paradoxically inscribed within the law and belongs to a new legal or juridical order. This amounts to the end of the twofold dimension of the Western legal system as we have known it, namely, the separation between rule of law within and pure violence on the external level. The present imperial organization knowns no externality pure violence has been reinserted at its heart and now belongs to the rule of law. Hence the State of exception as the form of government of the Empire appears above all to be a transitional phase, a tool in the process of installing a more stable form: dictatorship. The end of the formal separation of powers as well as the legal prerogatives appropriated by the executive branch show that this process is well underway. (shrink)

In that they generalise overriding procedures, measures against terrorism actually put fundamental liberties on hold. Emergency measures are given legal status. Such shift leads to a new kind of regime in which the executive power takes on the attributes of legal power, dictatorship. This turns out to be the most appropriate form of government in an imperial structure, with the US executive setting up emergency measures and inscribing them into the Law.

In the age of surveillance capitalism, the prevailing business model underlying the use of social media applications (“apps”) foresees the exchange of personal data for the allowance to use an online service. Such a data business model comes with many potential negative side effects ranging from violation of privacy issues to election manipulation. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to think of alternatives to the current data business model. The present study investigated how strong the support would be for a (...) monetary payment model among a sample of 210 participants. Participants were asked about their willingness to pay for social media, if in turn their data would be private and other problems concerning social media use would be tackled. Only one-fifth of participants (21.43%) supported such a model. From the Big Five Personality traits, Agreeableness was positively associated with support of such a model. Finally, data are also provided on how much participants would be willing to pay for social media on a monthly basis. The present study’s findings are of a preliminary nature and will contribute to the start of an important discussion. (shrink)

The importance of ethical consumerism to many companies worldwide has increased dramatically in recent years. Ethical consumerism encompasses the importance of non-traditional and social components of a company's products and business process to strategic success - such as environmental protectionism, child labor practices and so on. The present paper utilizes a random utility theoretic experimental design to provide estimates of the relative value selected consumers place on the social features of products.

This chapter discusses the utility of cost-benefit analysis in decision making, specifically environmental decision making. For the purposes of the discussion here, it uses a type of CBA that incorporates two controversial characteristics, namely, the assumption of comparability and the willingness-to-pay measure. The chapter aims to show that the recognition of a well motivated holistic decision-making strategy can shed light on debates regarding CBA. This strategy is concerned with patterns of choices rather than individual ones, and corresponds with two (...) familiar phenomena—the “pricing” of alternatives and the “embedding effect” in willingness-to-pay studies. This chapter also differentiates CBA from cost-preparedness analysis, and concludes that there need not be any inconsistency in pricing alternatives deemed incomparable and that willingness-to-pay studies can be more accurately interpreted as tracking the “preparedness to pay.”. (shrink)

Selective accessibility mechanisms indicate that anchoring effects are results of selective retrieval of working memory. Neuroimaging studies have revealed that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is closely related to memory retrieval and performance. However, no research has investigated the effect of changing the cortical excitability in right DLPFC on anchoring effects. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can modulate the excitability of the human cerebral cortex, while anodal and cathodal tDCS are postulated to increase or decrease cortical activity, respectively. In (...) this study, we used tDCS to investigate whether effects of increased or decreased right DLPFC excitability influence anchoring effects in willingness to pay (WTP) experiments. Ninety participants were first randomly assigned to receive either anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation of 15 minutes, then they performed a valuation task regarding WTP. The results showed that anchoring effects were negatively related to activities of right DLPFC: the anodal stimulation diminished anchoring effects while the cathodal stimulation increased anchoring effects. These outcomes provide one of the first instances of neural evidence for the role of the right DLPFC in anchoring effects and support psychological explanations of the selective accessibility mechanisms and cognitive sets. (shrink)

Within a laboratory experiment we investigate a principal-agent game in which agents may, first, self-select into a group task (GT) or an individual task (IT) and, second, choose work effort. In their choices of task and effort the agents have to consider pay contracts for both tasks as offered by the principal. The rational solution of the game implies that contract design may not induce agents to select GT and provide positive effort in GT. Furthermore it predicts equal behavior of (...) agents with different productivities. In contrast, considerations of trust, reciprocity and cooperation – the social-emotional model of behavior – suggest that contract design can influence the agents’ willingness to join groups and provide effort. We analyze the data by applying a two-step regression model (multinomial logit and tobit) and find that counter to the rational solution, contract design does influence both, task selection and effort choice. The principal can increase participation in work groups and can positively influence group performance. Larger payment increases the share of socially motivated agents in work groups. The selection effect is larger than the motivation effect. (shrink)

This paper tests whether individual perceptions of markets as good or bad for a public good is correlated with the propensity to report gaps in willingness to pay and willingness to accept revealed within an incentive compatible mechanism. Identifying people based on a notion of market affinity, we find a substantial part of the gap can be explained by controlling for some variables that were not controlled for before. This result suggests the valuation gap for public goods can (...) be reduced through well-defined variables. (shrink)

Objectives—To study the attitudes of health care staff in four postcommunist countries towards taking gifts from their clients—and their confessed experience of actually taking such gifts.Design—Survey questionnaire administered to officials including health care staff, supplemented by focus-group discussions with the general public.Setting – Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.Participants—A quota sample of 1,307 officials including 292 health care staff, supplemented by stratified national random samples of 4,778 ordinary members of the public and in-depth interviews or focus-group discussions involving another (...) 323.Main measurements—Explicit justifications and willingness to accept offers, reported frequency of offers, and personal confessions to accepting “money and expensive presents” as well as smaller gifts.Results—Health care staff were far more inclined than the average official or public servant to accept “money or an expensive present” if offered, far more inclined to justify asking clients for “extra payments”, and far more inclined to confess that they had actually taken gifts from clients recently. Judged by their own confessions, hospital doctors were only rivalled by traffic police and customs officials for taking money or expensive gifts from their clients.Conclusions—Poor pay does not explain why doctors so often took large gifts from their clients. Moral self justification, opportunity, and bargaining power are much more effective explanations. (shrink)

Nearly all studies of consumers’ willingness to engage in ethical or socially responsible purchasing behavior is based on unconstrained survey response methods. In the present article we ask the question of how well does asking consumers the extent to which they care about a specific social or ethical issue relate to how they would behave in a more constrained environment where there is no socially acceptable response. The results of a comparison between traditional survey questions of “intention to purchase” (...) and estimates of individuals willingness-to-pay for social attributes in products reveal that simple survey questions are too “noisy” to provide operationally meaningful information and overstate intentions to a considerable extent. (shrink)

The rapidly declining biosphere integrity, representing one of the core planetary boundaries, is alarming. One of the most widely accepted measures to halt the rate of biodiversity loss is to maintain and expand protected areas that are effectively managed. However, it requires substantial finance derived from nature-based tourism, specifically visitors from urban areas. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on 535 Vietnamese urban residents, the current study examined how their biodiversity loss perceptions can affect their willingness to pay for (...) the entrance fee and conservation in protected areas. We found that perceived environmental degradation, loss of economic growth, loss of nature-based recreation opportunity, and loss of knowledge as consequences of biodiversity loss has indirect effects on paying willingness through the mediation of the attitude towards conservation. Especially, the perceived knowledge loss also has a direct positive influence on the willingness to pay for the entrance fee and conservation. In contrast, perceived loss of health is negatively associated with the attitude towards conservation. Based on these findings, we suggest that building an eco-surplus culture among urban residents can be a promising way to generate more finance from nature-based tourism for conservation in protected areas and ease the domestic government's and international organizations' funding allocations problems. (shrink)

As the market share of Fair Trade food products in countries of the North grows, understanding consumer preferences with regard to this recent label is becoming increasingly important. This article reports on a test of the consistency of consumers' stated preferences, for which a survey was conducted at the place and time of actual purchase decisions. The aim of the survey was to further improve the understanding of consumers' stated motivations for buying 'Fair Trade' and 'organic Fair Trade' bananas in (...) Switzerland. Hypothetical questions with double dichotomous choices were used to compare two types of bananas - conventional and labelled - and to assess the average stated willingness-to-pay (WTP) for Fair Trade-labelled bananas. The results show that Fair Trade is largely accepted in Switzerland and that the premium for purchasing such products is influenced by age, the number of young children and the perception of the Fair Trade label. I then used a comparative test of field observations and stated preferences for bananas to measure inconsistency in choices. This comparison reveals that less than one-fifth of the answers are in principle inconsistent. These results point to the importance of confidence in the Fair Trade labels if consumers' purchases are to increase. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to outline challenges associated with the inclusion of welfare issues in breeding goals for farm animals and to review the currently available methodologies and discuss their potential advantages and limitations to address these challenges. The methodology for weighing production traits with respect to cost efficiency and market prices are well developed and implemented in animal breeding goals. However, these methods are inadequate in terms of assessing proper values of traits with social and ethical values (...) such as animal welfare, because such values are unlikely to be readily available from the product prices and costs in the market. Defining breeding goals that take animal welfare and ethical concerns into account, therefore, requires new approaches. In this paper we suggest a framework and an approach for defining breeding goals, including animal welfare. The definition of breeding goals including values related to animal welfare requires a multidisciplinary approach with a combination of different methods such as profit equations, stated preference techniques, and selection index theory. In addition, a participatory approach involving different stakeholders such as breeding organizations, food authorities, farmers, and animal welfare organizations should be applied. We conclude that even though these methods provide the necessary tools for considering welfare issues in the breeding goal, the practical application of these methods is yet to be achieved. (shrink)

On the basis of an interdisciplinary approach linking taxation, marketing, and corporate social responsibility, the present research investigates the effects of media reports on aggressive and responsible corporate tax strategies (CTSs) on corporate success with consumers. By means of two laboratory experiments (N = 150, 360), we analyze the effects of the CTSs on corporate reputation, consumer purchase intention, and the consumer’s willingness to pay. Our results suggest that aggressive CTSs diminish corporate success with consumers, whereas responsible CTSs enhance (...) it. Nevertheless, consumers are not willing to pay a price premium for products sold by responsible tax-planning companies, but rather punish aggressive tax-planning companies through a slightly lower willingness to pay. Finally, consumers’ tax morale and their attitude toward tax avoidance are important moderating variables. Given the growing level of media interest in taxation, our findings are crucial for assessing consumer-related non-tax costs and the benefits of different CTSs. (shrink)

This paper examines perspectives on student disaffection in education at the levels of culture and policy. It considers the balance between punitive/exclusionary and therapeutic/restorative positions. The paper engages with concepts of retributive punishment (Murray, 2004a; 2004b), social welfare ideologies (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and discourses of social exclusion (Levitas, 1998). The conclusion is that policy choices are made about how disaffected, at risk young people are to be provided for, and these policy choices are not contained simply within an education policy and (...) practice setting. The policy responses emerge from national and local government decision-making. They correlate with national indicators of punitiveness in the criminal justice system and the scale of inequalities tolerated. Policies resonate with deep-seated cultural positions which are linked to the willingness to pay -- for prevention or for punishment -- and with the propensity to allocate blame either to individuals and families or to societal failures. Opportunities for intervention at points in the reinforcing cycle of punitiveness are indicated. (shrink)