Contingent Valuation (CV) methods are a primary tool in environmental economics to ascertain non-use or other values not observable through existing market mechanisms. Because common CV approaches typically rely on hypothetical answers from surveys in order to generate welfare estimates, these are often labelled stated preferences. Results from stated preference methods often diverge from those obtained when actual preference or behavior are involved. This divergence is commonly known as Hypothetical Bias (HB). This dissertation addresses HB as it applies to environmental applications. To begin, a meta-analysis using a sample of studies many times larger than previous works was performed. Its results identify which study protocols exacerbate HB, and which may mitigate it. Furthermore, the meta-analysis establishes the efficacy of some popular techniques to mitigate HB. The second essay focuses on understanding and addressing two important topics to environmental economics, distance decay and charismatic species conservation. These effects have not been investigated with respect to HB. We implement a field survey of monarch and viceroy butterfly conservation, creating survey treatment conditions involving both real payment and hypothetical scenarios in order to establish the extent of HB. The key finding is that while HB is present for both butterflies, HB in distance decay exists for monarchs. There is also additional HB for monarchs compared to viceroys, which we attribute to the former’s charisma. The final endeavor studies the usefulness of consequentiality, a relatively new tactic to reduce HB. Consequentiality is the degree to which respondents believe their answers may affect policy outcomes. Relying on the monarch field survey, we find that using a technique known as ex ante consequentiality may exacerbate HB. Another approach known as ex post consequentiality is more effective at reducing the extent of HB in the data. Lastly, some elements of the studies’ results showcase that HB is not always present and can also explain some of the mixed results found on the efficacy of HB mitigating methods reported in previous studies.

Experimental testing of attitude determination systems still plays an important role, despite increasing use of simulations. Testing provides a means to numerically quantify system performance, give confidence in the models and methods, and also discover and compensate for unexpected behaviours and interactions with the attitude determination system. The usefulness of the test results is dependent on an understanding of the uncertainties that contribute to the attitude error. With this understanding, the significance of the results can be assessed, and efforts to reduce attitude errors can be directed appropriately. The work of this thesis is to gain a quantitative understanding of the uncertainties that impact the attitude error of low cost spinning spacecraft using COTS camera (as Sun sensor) and MEMS magnetometer. The sensors were calibrated and the uncertainties in these calibrations were quantified, then propagated through the Triad method to uncertainties in the attitude. It was found that most systematic errors were reduced to negligible levels, except those due to timing latencies. Attitude errors achieved in the laboratory with the experimental setup were around 0.14 degrees (3σ) using either the Triad, q-method or Extended Kalman Filter with a gyro for dynamic model replacement. The errors in laboratory were dominated by magnetometer noise. Furthermore, correlated systematic errors had the effect of reducing the attitude error calculated in the laboratory. For an equivalent Sun-mag geometry in orbit, simulation showed that total attitude error would be of the order of 0.77 degrees (3σ). An uncertainty contribution analysis revealed this error was dominated by uncertainties in the inertial magnetic field model. Uncertainties in knowledge of the inertial Sun model, sensor calibration, sensor alignment and sensor noise were shown to be insignificant in comparison.

Cette thèse porte sur l'étude des politiques d'audit d’expériences de terrain et de laboratoire. En particulier, nous nous concentrons sur une règle d'audit particulière, nommée "crackdown", qui est la concentration de contrôles systématiques ou de haute fréquence dans une quantité limitée de temps, et/ou dans une zone géographique délimitée ou un sous-ensemble de la population. Même si elle a des implications évidentes et beaucoup d’applications, les économistes se sont peu intéressés à ce type de mesure. Nous étudions dans cette thèse l'efficacité de différents types de crackdowns. Le premier essai cherche à savoir s'il existe une alternative pour améliorer l'efficacité des crackdowns dans un jeu bien public dans lequel contribuer moins que la moyenne des autres membres du groupe est sanctionné et la probabilité d'un contrôle est inconnue. Nous constatons que, sous ambiguïté, un schéma du contrôle intermittent peut maintenir le même niveau de coopération par rapport à un régime du contrôle systématique tout en étant moins coûteux. Le deuxième essai offre une étude approfondie de l'efficacité relative de diverses politiques de crackdown à l'aide d'une expérience de laboratoire sur le terrain avec des passagers réels d'un service de transport public. Nous introduisons un jeu nouveau, le jeu de transport public, où les participants ont à décider, sur plusieurs périodes, s’ils souhaitent acheter ou non un billet sachant qu'il peut y avoir un contrôle. Le principal résultat est que les crackdowns durables sont moins efficaces que les contrôles aléatoires. Nous observons également que les fraudeurs réels fraudent plus que les non-fraudeurs. Le troisième essai développe un modèle étudiant l'efficacité de crackdowns endogènes, c’est-à-dire l’augmentation soudaine et dramatique de la probabilité d'audit déclenchée par un niveau de conformité détecté faible. Nous testons ce modèle expérimentalement. Nos résultats montrent que : (a) la conformité aux règles réagit rapidement à l'apparition des crackdowns ; (b) les participants déclarent plus de la moitié de leur revenu, même pendant les périodes sans crackdowns ; (c) les annonces de crackdown augmentent la conformité à la fois qu’elles soient ex ante ou ex post; (d) les participants parviennent à se coordonner rapidement pour mettre fin aux crackdowns. / This thesis focuses on the study of audit policies in different contexts using both lab and field experiments. In particular, we focus on a special auditing rule, called “crackdown”, which is the concentration of high-frequency or systematic controls in a limited amount of time and/or on a delimited geographical area or subset of the population. Despite its frequent use and obvious implications, little attention has been received from economists. We study in this thesis the efficiency of various types of crackdowns, manipulating the degree of uncertainty of individuals about the probability of audits.The first essay investigates whether there is an alternative to improve the efficiency of crackdowns in a public goods game. We find that, under ambiguity, a less costly intermittent audit scheme can sustain the same level of cooperation compared to a systematic audit regime when contributing less than the average of the other group members is centrally sanctioned.The second essay offers a comprehensive investigation on the relative efficiency of various crackdown policies using a lab-in-the-field experiment with passengers of a public transport service. We introduce a novel game, the daily public transportation game, where subjects have to decide, over many periods, whether to buy or not a ticket, knowing that there might be a control. The main result is that concentrated crackdowns are less effective and efficient than random controls. We also find that real fare-dodgers fraud more in the experiment than non-fare-dodgers.The third essay develops a simple model to study endogenous crackdowns, i.e., a dramatic increase of the audit probability triggered by a low level of compliance. We test this model experimentally. We show that: (a) compliance reacts quickly to the occurrence of crackdowns; (b) subjects report more than half of their income even during non-crackdown periods; (c) announcements of crackdown increase significantly tax compliance both when crackdowns are pre-announced and when they are announced ex post; (d) subjects are able to coordinate quickly to end crackdowns.

Cette thèse contient trois essais expérimentaux étudiant les causes possibles de l’inefficience des marchés des actifs. L’efficacité des marchés financiers est cruciale pour une bonne performance de l’économie dans son ensemble. La recherche en finance comportementale a montré que les investisseurs ne se comportent pas toujours de manière parfaitement rationnelle. Il est donc important de bien comprendre comment les individus créent leurs croyances concernant les décisions financières, ce qui les influence, comment elles affectent les marchés financiers, et donc l’efficacité des marchés.Les croyances individuelles relatives à une décision financière sont influencées par la façon dont les actifs sont déterminés. Le premier essai étudie l’impact du degré d’asymétrie des actifs échangés sur : premièrement, le développement du marché global, deuxièmement, la façon dont les individus perçoivent les actifs risqués en fonction de leurs préférences de risque, et troisièmement, la stabilité de la perception du risque de ces actifs dans le temps. Nos résultats suggèrent que l’asymétrie des actifs n’influence que marginalement le développement du marché, mais a un effet direct sur la perception du risque. Les décisions des agents qui interagissent sur les marchés financiers sont influencées par leurs préférences, leurs traits de personnalité et leurs biais comportementaux. Nous supposons que le profil personnel influe aussi bien sur le comportement individuel sur le marché, tels que l’activité d’échange, l’accumulation de stock et la performance, que sur le développement du marché global, comme la dynamique du prix ou le nombre d’actifs échangés. C’est l’objectif du deuxième essai. Nous constatons que les traits de personnalité sont les meilleurs prédicateurs de comportement du marché, à la fois individuel et global. Le troisième essai examine l’impact des incitations concurrentielles sur l’augmentation des anomalies de marché. Dans ce cas, allonger l’échelle de temps sur laquelle les comparaisons des performances sont basées, contribue-t-il à améliorer l’efficience des marchés financiers ? Nous constatons que le bonus à l’échelle de temps étendue aidera à réduire les anomalies du marché et à améliorer l’efficacité du marché financier. / This thesis contains three essays that focus on asset market inefficiency using the experimental method. Financial market efficiency is crucial for good performance of the economy as a whole. Research in behavioral finance has shown that investors do not always behave fully rationally and systematically violate the assumptions of the traditional framework. It is therefore important to fully understand how individuals create their expectations regarding financial decisions, what influences them, how they affect the global market, and therefore financial market efficiency.Individual expectations about a financial decision are influenced by the manner assets are determined. The first essay investigates the impact of skewness of traded assets on first, aggregate market development, second, the way individuals perceive risky assets according to their risk preferences, and third, the stability of the assets’ risk perception in time. Our results suggest that assets’ skewness influences only marginally the asset market development, but directly effects the individual risk perception.Agents interacting in financial markets are not fully rational. Their decisions are influenced by their preferences, personality traits and the degree they are prone to behavioral biases. We suppose that the personal profile influences individual market behavior, such as trading activity, stock accumulation and performance, and also the aggregate market development, such as price dynamic or turnover of traded assets. This is the objective of the second essay. We find that the personality traits are the best predictors of both individual and aggregate market behavior.The third essay examines whether competitive incentives do contribute to the increase of mispricing in financial markets. If they do, does the extended time horizon of performance comparison help to improve the control against excessive risk-taking and therefore improve financial market efficiency. We find that the bonuses with extended time horizon help to diminish mispricing and improve the financial market efficiency.

The Florida Reef and associated human community form a unique socio-ecological system. While this system represents great value to society, it is exposed to high levels of vulnerability. Despite intense study of its elements, the system lacks conceptual integrity, its management is fragmented, and user valuation remains unclear. A survey using contingent valuation methods investigated stakeholders' attitudes and how much they are willing to pay for sustainable seafood, coral reef restoration, and research funding for coral reefs in southeastern Florida. Respondents expressed angst about climate change and reef conditions, and they connected reef degradation to land-based pollution and water quality. Regression analysis revealed status (income, education) as weak, indirect predictors of behavior, age as a moderating influence, and environmental and emotive factors as strong, direct predictors. One's relative attachment to ecosystems, such as coral reefs, is theorized as a motivation that displaces the expectations of traditional economic theory.

The Greater Everglades system imparts vital ecosystem services (ES) to South Florida residents including high quality drinking water supplies and a habitat for threatened and endangered species. As a result of the altered Everglades system and regional dynamics, restoration may either improve the provision of these services or impose a tradeoff between enhanced environmental goods and services and competing societal demands. The current study aims at understanding public preferences for restoration and generating willingness to pay (WTP) values for restored ES through the implementation of a discrete choice experiment. A previous study (Milon et al., 1999) generated WTP values amongst Floridians of up to $3.42 -$4.07 billion for full restoration over a 10-year period. We have collected data from 2,905 respondents taken from two samples who participated in an online survey designed to elicit the WTP values for selected ecological and social attributes included in the earlier study (Milon et al. 1999). We estimate that the Florida general public is willing to pay up to $854.1- $954.1 million over 10 years to avoid restrictions on their water usage and up to $90.8- $183.7 million over 10 years to restore the hydrological flow within the Water Conservation Area.

Expression identitaire de l’histoire et de la culture, l’architecture occupe une place importanteparmi les débats de la société contemporaine. Elle reste pourtant l’apanage de « spécialistes »,car peu connue et peu comprise par le plus grand nombre. L’émergence du profil de« l’architecte médiateur », expert dans la transmission de l’architecture, témoigne de l’effortde diffuser une culture partagée. Le milieu scolaire constitue alors une cible fondamentalepour ces professionnels. Ils s’engagent dans des dynamiques pédagogiques originales pouréduquer les enfants une discipline peu abordée par l’Éducation nationale. Au croisement entrela sociologie de l’architecture, de l’éducation, des professions, la thèse replace cesdynamiques dans le contexte de leur émergence, analyse les dispositifs qui leur donnent vie,puis les effets, en particulier au travers d’une expérimentation.Au vu de nos investigations, le système d’éducation à l’architecture s’organise à la marge desenseignements scolaires traditionnels sur un substrat favorable, issu de la reconnaissance del’architecture en tant qu’enjeu sociétal, de la promulgation de politiques culturelles etéducatives dédiées, du dynamisme professionnel des architectes. Il se construit sur la mise enplace « d’actions éducatives », coordonnées par un binôme enseignant-architecte médiateur :une dimension collective du travail mise en œuvre dans le cadre de dispositifs d’actionoriginaux (magistral, expérientiel, partenarial). De tels dispositifs génèrent des effetsd’apprentissage chez les élèves et de transformation des pratiques (culturelles etprofessionnelles) chez les autres acteurs (enseignants et communauté scolaire ; architectesmédiateurs et milieu professionnel). La recherche combine plusieurs sources : des analysesdocumentaires, 41 entretiens semi-directifs, 25 études de cas d’actions éducatives en France,l’expérimentation d’une action éducative sur quatre classes de la Métropole bordelaise.Finalement, les résultats montrent la complexité des géométries collaboratives en acte,l’originalité des pratiques pédagogiques mises au point, ainsi que la fragilité du système. Lathèse enrichit les réflexions sur la « mutation » des activités professionnelles des architectes ettrace des perspectives sur le développement du système d’éducation à l’architecture. / As an identitarian expression of history and culture, architecture is an important topic innowadays society’s debate. Nevertheless, it remains a specialists’ privilege, being sparselyknown or understood. The rising of the profile of “mediator-architect”, an expert inarchitectural transmission, testifies to the will to diffuse a mutual architectural culture. Theschool setting is a fundamental target for this professionals. They get involved in originalpedagogical dynamics to teach children about architecture, sparsely tackled issue by theFrench educational system. Halfway between sociology of education, of culture and ofprofessions, the thesis situates these dynamics in the context of their emergence, analyses thedevices to achieve them and describes their effects by an experimentation.In light of our investigations, French architecture educational system is organised outside ofthe traditional scholar teachings, on the basis of a favourable substrate, itself based on therecognition of architecture as societal stake, of the promulgation of dedicated cultural andeducational policies, of architects’ professional dynamism. It is built on the implementation of“educational actions” coordinated by a teacher-mediator team: a working collectivedimension described by unique action devices (lectures, experiences, partnerships). Suchdevices impulse a particular socialisation to architecture, generating learning effects on pupilsand transformation of practices (both cultural and professional) on teachers, mediatorarchitectsand other actors of their working environment. This research combines manysources: documentary analysis, 41 semi-directive interviews, 25 case studies of educationalactions in France, the experiment of an educational action in Bordeaux’s metropolitan area.The results point out the complexity of collaborative geometries, the originality ofpedagogical experiences, as well as the system’s fragility. This thesis enriches the reflexionsof mutations in the architects’ professional activities and present an outlook of futuredevelopments of architectural education.

The thesis presents a systematic experimental and numerical study on the interactions among porous fence, airflow, and windblown snowdrifts, a knowledge that will contribute to optimize the performance of porous wind shielding system in Cold Regions. A comprehensive review of the concepts, theories, techniques, and key findings associated with the research work has been undertaken. The key technical parameters influencing fence performance have been systematically studied by means of wind tunnel experimental investigations and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The study has found that porosity is the most influential structural parameter affecting the performance of porous fences in many aspects. Fence height stands a significant positive position in terms of its performance. It was found that fence performance is not sensitive to the changes of approaching atmospheric airflow velocity. Nevertheless, a bottom gap can improve snow fence trap efficiency. All of those findings agree with most of the findings of other researchers, which affirms that the research methodology adopted in this research is sound. Physical experimental work was performed to assess the reliability and credibility of the numerical models. Those models have been intentionally simplified, which made them easier to construct and quicker to obtain numerical solutions at a lower computational cost. Furthermore, the numerical models demonstrate the level of competence acquired through this research that is implemented in the optimisation of fence design. Special attention has been paid to the issues where elaborate research work has not been systematically reached in the open literature, this includes areas such as the effects of arrangement of porous holes, fence surface shear, and directions of wind load with respect to the fence, etc. Correlation between the reattachment length, the shelter distance, and the creation and distribution of fence surface shear is reported, to the author's knowledge, for the first time in the open literature. General guidelines for the design of shelters based on porous fences have been established through this study. For example, the desirable size of hole range should be identified beforehand, and porous holes with sharp angular corners should usually be avoided in the fence design. It is recommended to place the fence within an angle of 30° to the wind load, where the effective shelter distance can be estimated in a linearized equation, and the normal drag coefficient can be described as a function of cos2θ. Optimal design of the arrangement of porous holes will maximize the fence performance, especially when the close fence environment is of concern. Although the definition of fence effective zone is still vague in the research field, the key factors influencing the fence effective zone have been investigated by evaluating the reduction of wind velocity leeward of the fence in this thesis. It is found that the fence effective zone is not sensitive to the change of approaching airflow velocity, and that increasing fence height will increase the physical size of the fence effective zone, but not in a proportional manner. It is also concluded that fence effective zone will be significantly reduced when the non-normal wind load is inclined at an angle greater than 30° to the fence. The effective zone increases effectively when the fence porosity is optimal. In contrast to the majority of published research work, the transient snow transport model presented in this work considers the snow transport rate as a whole without distinguishing the rate in saltation and suspension layer. The numerical study indicated that the position of the snow crest is mainly determined by the fence height, while porosity and bottom gap mainly affect the downwind deposition length. The optimal porosity for snow fences is in the range of 0.4 to 0.5, which is greater than the one for wind fences, which lies in the range from 0.25 to 0.35. Two snow crests have been observed leeward the fence at the onset of snow deposition, when the fence was placed without a bottom gap to the snow ground. This finding has not been encountered in any of the reported research work. Wind tunnel simulations of snowdrift around the fences have marginally under-predicted the sizes of snow deposition. The numerical predictions were quantitatively and qualitatively in good agreement with the field observations. This incompetence of wind tunnel experiments on porous fences implies that numerical modelling can play a more important role in snow fence research.

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The geographic variation of taxonomic richness may be directly determined by climate through contemporaneous/ecological processes, versus other (e.g., historical/evolutionary processes) that happen to be collinear with contemporaneous climate. In Chapter 1 I evaluated hypotheses from both groups of explanations in North America. If contemporaneous climate controls patterns of richness, then richness should vary with climate through time in the same way that richness varies with current climate through space. Over the last ca. 11,000 yr, richness-temperature relationships remained reasonably constant. Between 12,000 and 14,000 yr BP, when climate fluctuated rapidly, richness gradients as a function of temperature were significantly shallower. If historical climate over the last 21,000 years determines patterns of richness, then historical climate should be a better predictor of richness than contemporaneous climate. I rejected historical-climate as a better predictor of richness. Contemporaneous climate stands as the most plausible explanation for contemporaneous patterns of richness, at least over the last 11,000 yr. In Chapter two, I tested the prediction that richness of most taxa should increase with temperature in all but the warmest and driest areas. Climate warming during Pleistocene-Holocene transition led richness increases in wet areas, but richness declines in dry regions, as expected from current richness-climate relationships. A decline in small mammal species richness in Northern California since the late Pleistocene was expected from the current richness-climate relationship for this group in North America. These results contest the view that future global warming may lead to species extinction rates that would qualify as the sixth mass extinction in the history of the earth. In chapter three, I first tested the hypothesis that richness gradients mainly reflect the sum of individual species climatic tolerances. I tested this hypothesis for birds, mammals and trees native to eastern North America (ENA, where there are no major barriers to dispersal). The number of species present in any given area in ENA is usually much smaller than the number of species in the continental pool that tolerate the climatic conditions in that area. Second, I tested several explanations for patterns of unfilled potential richness. Unfilled potential richness is inconsistent with postglacial dispersal lags, climatic variability since the Last Glacial Maximum, or with biotic interactions. In contrast, unfilled richness is highly consistent with a probabilistic model of species climate occupancy. Individual species climatic tolerances is not the process generating the main current patterns of richness, nor are post-glacial dispersal lags, climatic variability since the LGM or biotic interactions. This thesis is consistent with the hypothesis that contemporaneous climate directly controls spatial patterns of richness. Generally, there seems to be little need to invoke historical processes as determinants of current gradients of richness.