<p>This dissertation investigates the non-market value of environmental quality in several contexts with attention paid to equilibrium effects. Chapter One contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the effect of various actions taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under CERCLA, commonly known as the Superfund Program, on housing prices. The study differs from national sample analyses and site-specific analyses by providing policy-relevant estimates of the hedonic price function in a particular region for the average site. Further, an estimate of the effect on housing prices is given for each of the major events that occur under a typical Superfund remediation. Using house and time-varying census tract fixed effects, I find a 7.3% increase in sales price for houses within 3 km of a site that moves through the complete Superfund program. The analysis gives evidence of positive price appreciation for housing markets and serves as a lower bound for measuring remediation benefits. Chapter Two proposes a new dynamic general equilibrium model of residential location choice with social spillovers and uses it to evaluate the equilibrium consequences of changes in pollution exposure. In particular, I investigate the hypothesis of ``minority move-in,'' which postulates that disproportionate exposure to pollution results from minorities and low-income households trading off such exposure for lower housing costs. Second, I address the question of whether economic incentives caused by differences in willingness to pay across socioeconomic status can explain why polluters disproportionately locate near disadvantaged populations in order to minimize expenses from collective action bargaining over the negative externality. Simulations indicate ``minority move-in'' likely does account for some of the imbalance in exposure to pollution across socioeconomic status. Further, general equilibrium estimates reveal that equilibrium sorting behavior widens the gap in willingness to pay for environmental quality between minority and white households, and between high and low-income households. The disparity in general equilibrium willingness to pay to avoid toxic emissions provides economic incentives for polluters to target disadvantaged populations. Chapter Three investigates how information contained in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory program affects prices in the housing market. First, I use a reduction in the reporting requirement threshold in 2001 as a quasi-experiment to determine whether prices change for existing firms who, as a result of the change, must report. Second, the existence of a reporting threshold creates a discontinuity in treatment than can be exploited. I estimate a regression discontinuity model that assumes that site unobservables are balanced in a neighborhood of the discontinuity. Using a difference-in-differences estimator for the first specification, I find that listing a site in the Toxic Release Inventory lowers prices by 3.1% within a three kilometer radius of the site, and that the effect is stronger at shorter distances. The regression discontinuity model produces qualitatively similar results that are smaller in magnitude but still significant. The results suggest that households to capitalize the information contained in the Toxic Release Inventory. However, since the treatment sites under consideration have virtually no emissions, these results do not contradict previous findings in the literature that toxic air emissions are unrelated to prices. Rather, they suggest that households might be concerned about the dangers of toxic chemicals that might result from an emergency or catastrophic accident.</p> / Dissertation

Market land prices ignore the non-market value of ecosystem goods and services; hence, too much agricultural land may be developed. Correct land valuation must include these non-market values. Values of ecosystem services provided by the Richland-Chambers constructed wetlands are assessed through meta-analysis to derive confidence intervals for the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for wetland services. Replacement costs are also used to estimate cost savings of creating wetlands to cleanse river water instead of constructing a conventional wastewater treatment facility. Benefit transfer is used to estimate WTP for non-market agricultural land amenities. Ecosystem services of runoff in the western and recharge in the eastern part of Comal County based on hydrological models are also calculated. Finally, seemingly unrelated regression is used to quantify the effects of growth on current agricultural land values in Texas. Using two different meta-analysis transfer functions, mean WTP for the Richland-Chambers wetlands are $843 and $999 / acre / year. Estimated 95% confidence interval is $95 to $7,435 / acre / year. This confidence interval clearly indicates the uncertainty associated with valuing ecosystem goods and services. The replacement cost of the Richland?Chambers constructed wetlands is estimated to be $1,688 / acre / year. Aggregate WTP to preserve farm and ranchland non-market amenities in Comal County is estimated to be $1,566 / acre. Using hydrologic models, the runoff is valued at $79 / acre, whereas, recharge value is $1,107 / acre. Development will cause a change in recharge, runoff, and pollution which will decrease societal welfare by $1,288 / acre. Seemingly unrelated regression results show that a percentage increase in population growth in the closest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is associated with increases in land values of approximately $2 / acre. A one-mile increase in distance from the nearest MSA decreased land values by $4 / acre in 1997, $6 / acre in 2002, and $8 / acre in 2007. The diversity of studies illustrates that a cookbook type of methodology is not appropriate for valuing ecosystem goods and services. On the other hand, development contributes positively to land values through encroachment on agricultural lands.

This thesis uses zonal travel cost method (ZTCM) to estimate consumer surplus of Peace &amp; Love festival in Borlänge, Sweden. The study defines counties as zones of origin of the visitors. Visiting rates from each zone are estimated based on survey data. The study is novel due to the fact that mostly TCM has been applied in the environmental and recreational sector, not for short term events, like P&amp;L festival. The analysis shows that travel cost has a significantly negative effect on visiting rate as expected. Even though income has previously shown to be significant in similar studies, it turns out to be insignificant in this study. A point estimate for the total consumer surplus of P&amp;L festival is 35.6 million Swedish kronor. However, this point estimate is associated with high uncertainty since a 95 % confidence interval for it is (17.9, 53.2). It is also important to note that the estimated value only represents one part of the total economic value, the other values of the festival's totaleconomic value have not been estimated in this thesis.

The Choice Modelling technique is an emerging technique which appears to have strengths relative to other non-market valuation techniques. The latter group are important in the assessment of the tradeoffs involved in environmental and resource use tradeoffs. However, the use of these techniques is often criticised where ethical and moral frameworks are involved, where it is unclear how difficult choices are being framed against each other, or where it is unclear how values change according to the scope of the amenity under consideration The primary focus of the thesis is on the development of the Choice Modelling technique, which provides a richer information set to researchers than other techniques such as Contingent valuation method. However, the richness of this data is offset to some degree by the complexity of application, where careful attention is needed for design, application and analytical stages. In this thesis, a series of four Choice Modelling experiments are reported, as well as two small Contingent Valuation experiments. The Choice Modelling experiments were centred on the estimation of values that Australians might hold for rainforest conservation in Vanuatu. In order to frame and scope the tradeoffs of interest within the broad pool of substitute goods (such as rainforest conservation opportunities in other countries), the Choice Modelling technique appeared more suitable than the single tradeoff preservation of the Contingent Valuation method. The results of Choice Modelling experiments involved sets of parameters indicating that the probability of choice depended on a number of attributes used to make up the conservation profiles together with the influence of unobserved attributes. As a willingness-to-pay variable was included within the attributes making up choice profiles, estimates of value were available by predicting how changes in particular attributes could be offset by changes in the willingness-to-pay variable. The major conclusions of the research presented in the thesis were that the involvement with ethical and moral frameworks does not invalidate the use of non-market valuation techniques, and that the Choice Modelling technique has strengths in relation to scooping and framing issues. In particular, the research demonstrates that the information generated from an experiment can be used in an iterative approach to develop more accurate models of choice. As well, the research shows that the amenity of interest, rainforest conservation in Vanuatu, can have positive values for Australian residents relative to other conservation opportunities.

The Choice Modelling technique is an emerging technique which appears to have strengths relative to other non-market valuation techniques. The latter group are important in the assessment of the tradeoffs involved in environmental and resource use tradeoffs. However, the use of these techniques is often criticised where ethical and moral frameworks are involved, where it is unclear how difficult choices are being framed against each other, or where it is unclear how values change according to the scope of the amenity under consideration The primary focus of the thesis is on the development of the Choice Modelling technique, which provides a richer information set to researchers than other techniques such as Contingent valuation method. However, the richness of this data is offset to some degree by the complexity of application, where careful attention is needed for design, application and analytical stages. In this thesis, a series of four Choice Modelling experiments are reported, as well as two small Contingent Valuation experiments. The Choice Modelling experiments were centred on the estimation of values that Australians might hold for rainforest conservation in Vanuatu. In order to frame and scope the tradeoffs of interest within the broad pool of substitute goods (such as rainforest conservation opportunities in other countries), the Choice Modelling technique appeared more suitable than the single tradeoff preservation of the Contingent Valuation method. The results of Choice Modelling experiments involved sets of parameters indicating that the probability of choice depended on a number of attributes used to make up the conservation profiles together with the influence of unobserved attributes. As a willingness-to-pay variable was included within the attributes making up choice profiles, estimates of value were available by predicting how changes in particular attributes could be offset by changes in the willingness-to-pay variable. The major conclusions of the research presented in the thesis were that the involvement with ethical and moral frameworks does not invalidate the use of non-market valuation techniques, and that the Choice Modelling technique has strengths in relation to scooping and framing issues. In particular, the research demonstrates that the information generated from an experiment can be used in an iterative approach to develop more accurate models of choice. As well, the research shows that the amenity of interest, rainforest conservation in Vanuatu, can have positive values for Australian residents relative to other conservation opportunities.

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier quelle composition du conseil d’administration permet d’assurer l’efficacité de ses fonctions de surveillance et de conseil. Dans le chapitre 1, nous étudions si la présence d’administrateurs qui sont liés à des actionnaires minoritaires peut constituer un mécanisme efficace de gouvernance d'entreprise pour limiter l'expropriation par les actionnaires majoritaires, sans exacerber les risques. L’étude empirique de ce chapitre est réalisée sur un échantillon de banques avec un actionnariat concentré. Les résultats indiquent que la présence d’administrateurs minoritaires permet d’augmenter l'efficacité du conseil d'administration des banques dans la mesure où elle entraîne une valorisation de marché plus élevée, sans augmentation du risque. Le chapitre 2 complète le premier chapitre afin de déterminer les facteurs, tant au niveau de la banque que du pays, qui peuvent favoriser la présence d’administrateurs minoritaires dans les conseils de banque. Les résultats montrent que: (i) l’importance des droits de vote des actionnaires majoritaires, la qualité des recommandations envers le conseil d'administration dans les codes de gouvernance d'entreprise et le niveau de protection des actionnaires sont des facteurs qui favorisent la présence d’administrateurs minoritaires au sein des conseils des banques; (ii) des régimes de surveillance stricts et une forte opacité réduisent la présence d’administrateurs minoritaires dans les conseils d'administration des banques. Nos travaux suggèrent que les autorités bancaires devraient recommander aux banques avec un actionnariat concentré d'inclure un minimum d’administrateurs minoritaires dans leur conseil d'administration. Dans le chapitre 3, nous examinons l'impact de l’imposition d’un quota minimum de membres de chaque sexe sur la performance des entreprises et leurs décisions, en prenant le cas de la Belgique, la France et l'Italie comme expérience naturelle. Notre analyse statistique montre que le pourcentage de femmes augmente de manière significative et que les caractéristiques des membres du conseil d’administration changent considérablement après la mise en place du quota. Les résultats empiriques montrent que les quotas n’ont pas d’impact significatif sur la performance des entreprises et leurs décisions. Nos résultats appuient la mise en place d’un quota afin d’assurer une représentation équilibrée des hommes et des femmes au sein des conseils d’administration des entreprises. Ils montrent cependant que les régulateurs créent des attentes irréalistes quant à la capacité des femmes à améliorer les performances des entreprises, du moins à court terme lorsque les effets négatifs de l’imposition d’un quota sont potentiellement les plus importants. / His thesis aims to provide some answers to the question of what makes a board effective in carrying out its monitoring and advising functions. In Chapter 1, we examine whether board structures that include directors that are related to minority shareholders can be an effective corporate governance mechanism to limit expropriation by controlling shareholders, without exacerbating risk. We focus our empirical analysis of this chapter on banks with a concentrated ownership structure. We find that the inclusion of such minority directors does indeed increase the effectiveness of bank boards, as it results in higher market valuations, without increasing risk. Chapter 2 complements the first chapter to determine the factors, at the bank and at the country level, that could favor the presence of minority directors on bank boards. We find that: (i) the voting rights of controlling shareholders, the quality of recommendations for boards of directors in Corporate Governance Codes and higher shareholder protection are factors that promote the presence of minority directors on bank boards; (ii) the degree of opacity and stronger supervisory regimes reduce the presence of minority directors on bank boards. Our work suggests that bank authorities should recommend banks with concentrated ownership structure to include a minimum of minority directors in their board. In Chapter 3, we investigate the impact of gender quotas on firm performance and corporate decisions using Belgium, France and Italy as a natural experiment. Our statistical analysis shows that the percentage of female directors significantly increases, and board members characteristics significantly change after the implementation of the gender quota. The results of our empirical analysis show evidence that gender quotas do not have a significant impact on both firm outcomes and corporate decisions. Our findings support the decision of policy-makers to use mandatory rules to force firm to achieve gender balance on corporate boards. Our results suggest that policy-makers create unrealistic expectations for women to boost firm performance, at least in the short-run when negative side effects of mandatory rules are potentially strongest.

Wilderness areas provide a wide array of quality nature experiences including primitive recreational opportunities in a primeval condition. However, a lot of these ecological and pristine sites suffer from disturbance and environmental degradation by the exhaustive human recreational use on campsites. Most of the impacts associated with camping gradually become a critical concern since they can be devastating to a wilderness environment and the affiliated experience. This study employed the contingent valuation method to determine peoples' willingness to pay for the preservation of the Panther Den Wilderness if campsites were restricted /limited, and to estimate an economic value of non-market goods and services affiliated to the preservation and use values of the Panther Den Wilderness. A Contingent valuation questionnaire was administered to gather information on the respondent's intentions and to determine what they would be willing to pay under a hypothetical scenario. Moon's WTP model estimated the willingness to pay relationship with a set of explanatory and socio-demographic variables including bid sizes, miles traveled, recreation times, campsite impacts observed, age, gender, and education. Results revealed that there was a clear relationship between the respondents' willingness to pay, the pre-determined bid-size/fee level, and the distance traveled to the Panther Den Wilderness, hence; the correlation between the variables was highly significant. The estimated mean willingness to pay value for the preservation of the Panther Den Wilderness was $9.56 per visitor. Overall, the estimated results and mean willingness to pay value served as the interpretation of an assessment which clearly revealed that outdoor recreation users were willing to pay a user fee for the preservation of the Panther Den Wilderness regardless of campsite limitations or restrictions.

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.

The graduation theses is focused on inspection and description of basic access to evaluation of real property in the Czech Republic, their analysis and comparison. The theoretical part is focused on the description of legislative adjustment for evaluation of real property, definition of basic terms and relations. It deals with role of international standards and their impact on national regulations. The attention is paid methodological rules of assessing property. The next part of study descibes basic approachs, methods and techniques for assessing real property for specific aims. It is intersted in market methods (on basis of comparison, yield and cost substitutions), evaluation in agreement with regulation of Ministry of Finance and assessing in insurance (approachs of the biggest insurer, brokerage firms and methods advises by specialists). The theoretical knowledges are in the following part apply to practical study of evaluation (the real estate is family house). It contains description of valuations. In the end of the graduation theses, the approachs are compared and analyzed factors, which influences the differences.

Master’s thesis deals with real estate valuation in Australia. The introductory part deals with the definition of the terms used in the work, for its better understanding. Furthermore, it discusses the development of valuation theory and its relation to economic ideas and various aspects that have influenced its development. The thesis then deals with methods of real estate valuation, their division and specific features. The thesis also discusses the current state of the real estate market on the Australian continent and outlines its possible future development. The experimental section describes the valuation of a particular property in Australia and describes which particular properties affect its cost.