The question of how to measure and classify people's risk preferences is of substantial importance in the field of economics. Inspired by the multitude of ways used to elicit risk preferences, we conduct a holistic investigation of the most prevalent method, the multiple price list (MPL) and its derivations. In our experiment, we find that revealed preferences differ under various versions of MPLs as well as yield unstable results within a 30-minute time frame. We determine the most stable elicitation method with the highest forecast accuracy by using multiple measures of within-method consistency and by using behavior in two economically relevant games as benchmarks. A derivation of the well-known method by Holt and Laury (American Economic Review 92(5):1644-1655, 2002), where the highest payoff is varied instead of probabilities, emerges as the best MPL method in both dimensions. As we pinpoint each MPL characteristic's effect on the revealed preference and its consistency, our results have implications for preference elicitation procedures in general.

The question of how to measure and classify people´s risk preferences is of substantial importance in the field of Economics. Inspired by the multitude of ways used to elicit risk preferences, we conduct a holistic investigation of the most prevalent method, the multiple price list (MPL) and its derivations. In accordance with previous literature, we find that revealed preferences differ under various and even the same versions of the MPL. Thus, an arbitrary selection of a particular risk assessment method can lead to biased results especially if researchers investigate its connection to other phenomena. In order to resolve this issue, we determine the most stable version of the MPL by using multiple measures of within-method consistency, and the version with the highest forecast accuracy by using behavior in two economically relevant games as benchmarks. A derivation of the well-known method by Holt and Laury (2002), where the highest payoff is varied instead of probabilities, emerges as the best MPL method in both dimensions. (authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

In this article, we consider the portfolio selection problem as a Bayesian decision problem. We compare the traditional mean–variance and mean–variance–skewness efficient portfolios. We develop bi-level programming problem to investigate the market’s preference for risk by using observed (market) weights. Numerical experiments are conducted on a portfolio formed by the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Numerical results show that the market’s preferences are better explained when skewness is included.

This study used focus groups and surveys to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the Regional Traveler Information Center (RTIC) at UMass Amherst. The evaluation was completed by obtaining the awareness, usage, and perceived effectiveness of RTIC’s information by residents in the Pioneer Valley. It was found that awareness of RTIC is limited due to its lack of advertisement. Usage is focused primarily on its webcams and advisory information. Surveys showed that participants perceive RTIC to be useful, even though they may never have seen the information before (the survey provided a chance for them to become familiar with the service). Revealed preference data were collected regarding the travelers' most memorable instances where real-time traffic information was provided. A binary logit model of a traveler's switch decision (route, departure time, mode, destination, trip cancellation, or combinations of them) with real-time traffic information was specified and estimated. It was found that travelers have an increasing tendency to switch away from the original option when the resulting delay caused by congestion increases. Receiving congestion and crash information also provided a tendency to take an alternative travel method. It was found that males tend to switch more often than females, and young individuals switch less often.

I denna uppsats skattas betalningsviljan hos besökarna på Peace & Love-festivalen år 2011. Med hjälp av enkätdata baserad på avslöjade och uttalade preferenser presenteras en regressionsanalys med olika oberoende variabler som karaktäriserar en festivalbesökare. Total budget är den beroende variabeln i regressionsanalysen och tolkas i uppsatsen som ekvivalent med besökarnas betalningsvilja. Analysen visar att män i genomsnitt spenderar 301 kronor mer än kvinnor, att turister i genomsnitt spenderar 1 124 kronor mer än en icke-turist samt att den genomsnittliga besökaren har en betalningsvilja på 4 183 kronor. Ett skattat konsumentöverskott har också värderats, vilket uppgick till 743 kronor per person och cirka 37 miljoner kronor totalt för de 50 000 festivalbesökarna. Uppsatsen tar inte hänsyn till de ekonomiska effekter som festivalen har på Borlänge som stad. / In this thesis the willingness to pay among the visitors of peace & love-festival year 2011 is valued. With survey data based on revealed and stated preferences a regression analysis is presented with different independent variables that characterizes a festival visitor. Total budget is the dependent variable in the regression analysis and is, in this thesis, to be regarded as equivalent to visitors’ willingness to pay. The analysis shows that men in general spend 301 SEK more than women, tourists in general spend 1 124 SEK more than non-tourists and that the average visitor has a willingness to pay valued to 4 183 SEK. A consumer surplus has also been valued, which amounted to 743 SEK per visitor and around 37 million SEK in total for all 50,000 visitors. This thesis does not take into account the economic effects the festival holds on the city of Borlänge.

La thèse porte sur des modèles économiques en présence d’externalités. En suivant Laffont (1988), nous donnons la définition suivante d’externalité.“Effet indirect” signifie que l’effet est créé par un agent économique différent de celui qui est affecté, et que l’effet n’est pas produit par l’intermédiaire du système de prix. Par conséquence, le système des prix ne joue que le rôle d’égaler à l’équilibre l’offre globale et la demande globale. La définition ci-dessus montre que la présence d’effets externes nécessite une nouvelle description des caractéristiques des agents, c’est-à-dire des préférences individuelles, des ensembles de consommation et des ensembles de production des producteurs. La thèse se compose de trois chapitres. Le premier chapitre étudie les restrictions de testabilité d’un modèle spécifique avec des externalités et des biens publics. Dans le deuxième chapitre et le troisième chapitre, nous considérons un modèle d’équilibre général avec des externalités au niveau des préférences individuelles et des ensembles de production des producteurs. Dans le deuxième chapitre nous traitons l’existence d’un équilibre concurrentiel en utilisant un approche différentiable, et dans le troisième chapitre nous donnons un résultat de régularité. Dans le Chapitre 2, nous considérons un modèle d’économie de propriété privée avec des externalités de consommation et de production. En utilisant une approche différentiable, nous prouvons que l’ensemble des équilibres concurrentiels avec des consommations et des prix strictement positifs est non vide et compact. Dans le Chapitre 3, nous considérons des économies de propriété privée avec externalités de consommation et de production. Nous étudions des conditions suffisantes pour la régularité générique de ces économies. / We study the testability implications of public versus private consumption in col-lective models of group consumption. The distinguishing feature of our approach is that we start from a revealed preference characterization of collectively rational behavior. Remarkably, we find that assumptions regarding the public or private nature of specific goods do have testability implications, even if one only observes the aggregate group consumption. In fact, these testability implications apply as soon as the analysis includes three goods and four observations. This stands in sharp contrast with existing results that start from a differential characterization of collectively rational behavior. In our opinion, our revealed preference approach obtains stronger testability conclusions because it focuses on a global characterization of collective rationality, whereas the differential approach starts from a local characterization.We consider a general model of private ownership economies with consumption and production externalities. Each firm is characterized by a technology described by a transformation function. Each household is characterized by a utility function, the shares on firms’ profit and an initial endowment of commodities. Describing equlib-ria in terms of first order conditions and market clearing conditions, and using a homotopy approach based on the seminal work by Smale (1974), under differentiability and boundary conditions, we prove the non-emptiness and the compactness of the set of competitive equilibria with consumptions and prices strictly positive.We consider a general equilibrium model of private ownership economy with con-sumption and production externalities. Each firm is owned by the households and it is characterized by a technology described by a transformation function. Each household is characterized by a utility function, the shares on the firms profits and an endowment of commodities. The choices of all agents (households and firms) affect utility functions and production technologies. Showing by an example that basic assumptions are not enough to guarantee a regularity result in the space of initial endowments, we provide sufficient conditions for the regularity in the space of endowments and perturbations of the transformation functions.

Etude historique des conditions d’émergence du champ de recherches de la perception des risques ; analyse critique du paradigme psychométrique et de la théorie culturaliste, ainsi que des conceptions du risque qui les sous-tend. / Historical study of the emergence conditions of risk perception as a research field; critical analysis of the psychometric paradigm and cultural theory, as well as of the underlying risk conceptions.

Cette thèse a pour but d'étudier les méthodes d'évaluation des ressources environnementales : la méthode des Coûts de Transport (CT) à préférences révélées et la méthode d'évaluation contingente (EC) à préférences déclarées afin de proposer les contributions suivantes. Dans le chapitre 1, nous montrons qu'il est possible si les données sur les deux méthodes sont disponibles pour les mêmes observations, d'obtenir une meilleure mesure de la disposition à payer (DAP) par la combinaison des deux méthodes en utilisant la technique du maximum de vraisemblance simulé. Dans le chapitre 2, nous montrons qu'une nouvelle approche: le "special regressor" pourrait être une solution pour traiter les problèmes d'endogénéité en EC. En utilisant des données sur la DAP pour réduire les risques subjectifs de mortalité due à la présence d' Arsenic dans l'eau potable , nous montrons que le problème d'endogénéité du niveau subjectif de risque de mortalité peut être réglé efficacement. Enfin dans le chapitre 3, en utilisant une nouvelle enquête sur l'électrification rurale au Rwanda, nous proposons un nouveau design de la méthode d'EC en permettant aux personnes interrogées de choisir entre une contribution en temps ou en argent. Ainsi, en plus de mesurer une DAP classique, nous obtenons aussi une disposition à contribuer du temps mesurée en jours, qui est une mesure aussi voire même plus pertinente que la DAP dans le contexte d'un pays en développement. / This dissertation aims at investigating the methods of the environmental resources valuation: revealed preferences Travel Cost (TC) method and stated preferences Contingent Valuation (CV) method in order to propose the following contributions. In chapter 1, we show that it is possible if both CV and TC data are available for the same observations, to obtain a better measure of willingness to pay (WTP) by combining the two methods using Simulated maximum Likelihood technique. In chapter 2, we show that the new special regressor approach could be a solution to treat endogeneity issues in CV. Using data on WTP for reducing subjective mortality risks due to arsenic in drinking water, we show that the endogeneity of the subjective mortality risk level can be treated effectively. Finally in chapter 3, using a new survey about rural electrification in Rwanda, we propose a new design for the CV method by allowing people to choose between a contribution in time or in money. Thus, in addition to measure a conventional WTP, we also obtain a willingness to contribute time measure which is as or even more relevant than WTP in the context of a developing country.

In the modern industrialized society, a long commuting time is becoming more and more common. However, commuting results in a number of different costs, for example, external costs such as congestion and pollution as well as internal costs such as individual time consumption. On the other hand, increased commuting opportunities offer welfare gains, for example via larger local labor markets. The length of the commute that is acceptable to the workers is determined by the workers' preferences and the compensation opportunities in the labor market. In this thesis the value of travel time or commuting time changes, has been empirically analyzed in four self-contained essays. First, a large set of register data on the Swedish labor market is used to analyze the commuting time changes that follow residential relocations and job relocations. The average commuting time is longer after relocation than before, regardless of the type of relocation. The commuting time change after relocation is found to differ substantially with socio-economic characteristics and these effects also depend on where the distribution of commuting time changes is evaluated. The same data set is used in the second essay to estimate the value of commuting time (VOCT). Here, VOCT is estimated as the trade-off between wage and commuting time, based on the effects wage and commuting time have on the probability of changing jobs. The estimated VOCT is found to be relatively large, in fact about 1.8 times the net wage rate. In the third essay, the VOCT is estimated on a different type of data, namely data from a stated preference survey. Spouses of two-earner households are asked to individually make trade-offs between commuting time and wage. The subjects are making choices both with regard to their own commuting time and wage only, as well as when both their own commuting time and wage and their spouse's commuting time and wage are simultaneously changed. The results show relatively high VOCT compared to other studies. Also, there is a tendency for both spouses to value the commuting time of the wife highest. Finally, the presence of hypothetical bias in a value of time experiment without scheduling constraints is tested. The results show a positive but not significant hypothetical bias. By taking preference certainty into account, positive hypothetical bias is found for the non-certain subjects.

Dans des régions avec beaucoup d'électricité renouvelable, comme le Québec, une augmentation du nombre de Véhicules Électriques (VE) peut réduire les gaz à effet de serre. Par contre, l'autonomie réduite des VE et la présence limitée d'infrastructure publique pour recharger les véhicules peuvent contribuer à un phénomène nommé anxiété de l'autonomie, où les usagers n'achètent pas des VE par peur qu'ils tombent en panne. On peut alors planifier l'emplacement de l'infrastructure publique de recharge de manière stratégique pour combattre cet effet, menant alors à un taux d'adoption plus élevé pour les VE. En utilisant des modèles de choix discret, nous incorporons des modèles économétriques de demande avancés capturant les préférences hétérogènes des usagers à l'intérieur de l'optimisation. En particulier, comme nous le démontrerons, ceci permet l'inclusion de nouveaux facteurs importants, tels qu'une disponibilité de la recharge à domicile et des effets de distance plus granulaire. Par contre, la méthodologie existante pour ce processus crée un modèle de programmation linéaire mixte en nombres entiers qui ne peut pas être résolue, même pour des instances de taille modeste. Nous développons alors une reformulation efficace en problème de couverture maximum qui, comme nous le démontrerons, permet une amélioration de plusieurs ordres de magnitude pour le temps de calcul. Bien que cette reformulation dans un problème de couverture maximum améliore grandement la capacité à résoudre le modèle, celui-ci demeure difficile à résoudre pour des problèmes de grandes tailles, nécessitant des heuristiques pour obtenir des solutions de haute qualité. Nous développons alors deux méthodes de décomposition de Benders spécialisées pour cette application. La première est une méthode de décomposition de Benders accélérée, qui se spécialise à réduire l'écart d'optimalité et à la résolution de problèmes de petite taille ou de taille modeste. La deuxième approche rajoute un branchement local à la méthode de décomposition de Benders accélérée, qui sacrifie de l'efficacité lors de la résolution de problèmes de plus petite taille pour une capacité augmentée afin d'obtenir des solutions réalisables de haute qualité. Finalement, nous présentons une méthode pour dériver des valeurs de paramètres autrement difficiles à obtenir pour le modèle de choix discrets dans le modèle d'optimisation. Ces paramètres dictent les effets de l'infrastructure publique de recharge sur l'adoption des VE. Pour ce processus, nous regardons les facteurs qui encouragent les usagers courants des VE à utiliser l'infrastructure existante. De manière plus précise, nous utilisons des données de recharge réelles de la ville de Montréal (Québec) pour estimer les impacts des caractéristiques des stations, tels que la distance des usagers, le nombre de bornes de recharge, et les installations à proximité. Différents types d'infrastructure sont considérés, de manière parallèle avec des modèles de choix discrets qui peuvent tenir compte de plusieurs observations pour chaque individu. Les contributions de cette thèse sont plus générales que simplement l'adoption de VE, étant applicable, par exemple, au problème de capture maximum, au problème de couverture maximum à multiples périodes, et à la prédiction de la station de recharge choisie par les conducteurs de VE. / In areas with large amounts of clean renewable electricity, such as Quebec, an increase to the number of electric vehicles (EVs) can reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the reduced range of EVs and the limited public charging infrastructure can contribute to a phenomenon known as range anxiety, where users do not purchase EVs out of concern they run out of charge while driving. We can strategically optimise the placement of public EV charging infrastructure to combat this effect, thus leading to increased EV adoption. By utilising discrete choice models, we incorporate advanced econometric demand models capturing heterogeneous user preferences within the optimisation framework. In particular, as we demonstrate, this allows for the inclusion of new, important attributes, such as a more granular home charging availability and a continuous degradation of quality based on the distance. However, existing methodologies for this optimisation framework result in a mixed-integer linear program which cannot be solved for even moderately sized instances. We thus develop an efficient reformulation into a maximum covering location problem which, as we show experimentally, allows for multiple orders of magnitude of improved solving time. While the reformulation into a maximum covering location problem greatly improves the solving capabilities for the model, it remains intractable for large-scale instances, relying on heuristics to obtain high-quality solutions. As such, we then develop two specialised Benders decomposition methods for this application. The first is an accelerated branch-and-Benders-cut method, which excels at solving small or medium-scale instances and at decreasing the optimality gap. The second approach incorporates a local branching scheme to the accelerated branch-and-Benders-cut method, which sacrifices some efficiency in solving smaller instances for an increased ability to obtain high-quality feasible solutions. Finally, we discuss a method for deriving difficult-to-obtain parameter values of the discrete choice model in the optimisation framework. These parameter values dictate the effects of the public charging infrastructure on EV adoption and, as such, play a crucial role in the optimisation model. For this process, we investigate the attributes that encourage current EV owners to utilise existing infrastructure. More specifically, we use real charging session data from the city of Montreal (Quebec) to determine the impacts of station characteristics such as the distance to the users, the number of outlets, and the nearby amenities. Different types of charging infrastructure are considered alongside discrete choice models which take into account multiple observations from individual users. The contributions of this thesis lie more broadly than simply EV adoption, being applicable to, e.g., the maximum capture problem, the multi-period maximum covering location problem, and the prediction of the charging station selected by EV drivers.