Search results

Professor Clem Tisdell has written widely on the application of economics to resolve ecological, environmental and resource problems. Reviews a selection of his papers to identify how, and how well, an economist can contribute to these problems. Those who read Tisdell’s papers are rewarded by discovering the wide range of ways in which economic principles can be applied, and trade‐offs can be identified. Those who read his papers also gain useful insights into the many roles of an academic economist, and the many useful contributions of one economist in particular.

We investigate discrepancies between willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) in the context of a stated choice experiment. Using data on customer preferences for water services where respondents were able to both ‘sell’ and ‘buy’ the choice experiment attributes, we find evidence of non-linearity in the underlying utility function even though the range of attribute levels is relatively small. Our results reveal the presence of significant loss aversion in all the attributes, including price. We find the WTP–WTA schedule to be asymmetric around the current provision level and that the WTP–WTA ratio varies according to the particular provision change under consideration. Such reference point findings are of direct importance for practitioners and decision-makers using choice experiments for economic appraisal such as cost–benefit analysis, where failure to account for non-linearity in welfare estimates may significantly over- or under-state individual's preferences for gains and avoiding losses respectively.

Overtourism is an emerging concept and a perennial process every destination is going through. It is a cyclic phenomenon derived from the destination, retained in the destination and at last demised by the destination. It's a kind of ‘tourism illness’ spreading rapidly in every destination in the present scenario. The status of overtourism in every destination has been caused by the tourist, of the tourist and for the tourist. In the context of religious places in Odisha, overtourism is a ‘disorder’ that cannot be mitigated, as religiosity, faith and spiritualism have propelled and governed people's sentiment and emotion. Hence ambiguity arises out of making an intrigue situation between a myth or a spiritual sojourn bounded by faith and belief. This chapter significantly contributes by unfolding the existing literature by providing the origin and evolution of overtourism, various stated definitions by the different authors, causes and consequences, and overtourism in religious destinations by adopting an exploratory study, particularly in case of the Golden triangle of Odisha.

This study presents a theoretical analysis along with a conceptual framework that combines research findings in consumer behaviour, marketing and tourism. Services, in general, are perceived to be riskier than goods and tourism services, especially, have been considered as critical in tourist' perception of risk. Hitherto, little attention has been paid to the influence of perceived risk on customer value in tourism. Thus, a conceptual framework, developed with respect to perceived risk and customer value amongst tourists, is presented. Since the proposed model of customer value will have to be validated, propositions for future research are discussed.

The exponential growth in the number of visitors and the mass-tourism mobility patterns in natural areas are causing serious issues such as traffic congestion, crowding in car parks, pollution, high noise levels, and traffic accidents. In order to redress this situation, demand management policies that propose more sustainable transportation systems are crucial. In this chapter, the authors summarize extensive research carried out in Teide National Park (Canary Islands, Spain), the most visited national park in Spain, one of the most visited in the world, and a clear example of a natural area under pressure from mass tourism. The authors present the current situation of the natural site and three scientific contributions based on a survey combining revealed and stated preferences that analyzes visitor preferences with regard to the use of sustainable transportation systems. The first study analyzes visitors’ preferences regarding the implementation of a public bicycle-sharing system. The second study explores visitors’ willingness to pay to reduce the environmental impact of their visit and the potential implementation of a shuttle-bus service. The third study investigates the recreational economic value of the site. The chapter provides useful information for decision-makers who need to address problems associated with the unsustainable visitor mobility and reports results that can be extrapolated to other natural parks with similar characteristics and high inflow of tourists.

It is argued that there are three broad conditions that are necessary for an individual farmer to adopt a farming‐system innovation: awareness of the innovation, perception that it is feasible and worthwhile to trial the innovation, and perception that the innovation promotes the farmer’s objectives. Challenges involved in meeting each of these conditions are discussed, with particular attention to land conservation practices. In Australia, agricultural extension is the main method of intervention that has been used to promote land conservation. Insights from the framework presented here are used to suggest the particular types of approaches to agricultural extension that are most likely to contribute to positive outcomes.

This paper aims to present a simple behavioural explanation of the prohibition of speculation in Islamic finance.

This paper proposes a theoretical model that describes how investors from low income strata of the society may be prone to make sub-optimal decisions when they compare their outcome from a speculative trading activity to that of the counterparty to the trade and perceive inequity to exist.

When individuals from low income strata of the society compare their current situation with the average income of the society, they perceive themselves to be in a loss. This creates a loss frame within which they then evaluate all future outcomes. When such individuals invest in speculative trading activities and incur a loss, they compare their outcome from the trade to that of the counterparty to the trade. As speculative trades are a zero sum game, the counterparty makes an equivalent gain from the trade. Thus, the comparison leads to a perception of inequity. This perception of inequity is aggravated by the loss frame within which the investor is operating. The aggravated inequity aversion may then motivate the investor to make further sub-optimal decisions like repeated speculative trading activities. The Islamic prohibition on speculative trading activities may serve to protect low income investors from entering into such cycles of sub-optimal decisions.

This paper offers a unique explanation of why day trading and short selling may be prohibited in Islamic capital markets.

Steam contamination (solid particles in the superheated steam) comes from the boiler water largely in the carry‐over of water droplets. The need for extreme purity of steam for use in high pressure turbines has prompted the development of highly satisfactory devices for separating steam and water in a boiler drum. Consequently, steam contamination has been steadily reduced. Troublesome turbine blade deposits may occur with surprisingly low (0.6 ppm) total solids contamination in steam. In the 3.5–6 MPa range, however these deposits are usually water soluble and can be removed by periodic washing. In the 4 to 10 MPa range, however, silica deposits predominate and these deposits are not easily removed by water washing. With operating pressure of 13 MPa and above insoluble deposits do occur which may be controlled by residual water washing. Before the unit is returned to service, the deposits should be removed by air or water‐driven turbine cleaners or by chemical cleaning.

A major problem in environmental economics is to estimate the monetary value of non-market goods. This is especially relevant for environmental goods. To assess their non-use value, different approaches have been used measuring stated and revealed preferences. However, both methodologies are associated with criticism. The purpose of this paper is to propose a new method to estimate non-use values of environmental goods, i.e., to calculate revealed preferences in crowdfunded projects.

Since millions of individuals invest in various crowdfunded projects, the willingness to pay (WTP) can be robustly derived for any kind of project. Here, data on 19 projects on three endangered species are collected from various crowdfunding platforms.

With the new method introduced to estimate the monetary value of non-market goods, the WTP could be determined for a number of projects. Across projects, the average WTP per person is $42 for dolphins, $45 for falcons and $38 for butterflies. This new approach is validated by comparing these values to a meta-analysis of contingent valuation studies reporting on average $42 for dolphins, $37 for falcons and $24 for butterflies.

The limitation of this study is the small number of projects which are for demonstration only.

Validating this method by a comparison with a meta-analysis of contingent valuation shows that estimating WTP via crowdfunding may serve as a new instrument. Given the large number of subjects and diversity of projects in crowdfunding, a robust WTP could be derived for many topics in the future.

A new method to estimate the monetary value of non-market goods is introduced. Estimating the WTP via crowdfunded projects makes it possible to measure revealed preferences for a large variety of environmental and other projects.