Alcohol is a complex good which is ingrained within the social fabric of Australian culture. This is even more apparent within rural communities which are considered to have higher levels of risky alcohol consumption. While alcohol provides pleasure to many, it has devastating effects for others. Not only are individuals themselves affected, but also their families and the community at large. This thesis considers a number of the economic aspects associated with alcohol consumption in rural Australia. This thesis was completed in conjunction with a larger ongoing project: Alcohol Action in Rural Communities (AARC), which is a cost-benefit analysis of community-wide interventions to reduce alcohol-related harm in rural Australia. Given the study involves 20 rural communities in New South Wales, Australia; much of the analysis is centred around data collected from these communities. This thesis examines the amount and patterns of alcohol consumption, some of the associated harms, the value of reducing these harms, plus professionals’ and the public’s opinions on interventions, viewed as an optimal solution to reduce alcohol-related harm for the communities within this study. First, those factors which affect individuals’ decisions regarding how much alcohol to consume are examined through econometric modelling of the demand for alcohol. Moreover, a theoretical model is derived whereby individuals choose both the intensity and frequency of alcohol consumption in order to maximise their utility. This is then used to examine those factors that affect the relationship between intensity and frequency of alcohol consumption for individuals within the 20 communities of the study. Secondly, the impact that this alcohol consumption has in terms of the effect on morbidity, crime and traffic accidents within these 20 communities is analysed. The relationship between selfreported quality of life using the EQ5D (a quality of life instrument) and self-reported risky alcohol use are examined using ordered Probit and Tobit models. Also, the relationship between community levels of risky drinking and crime and traffic accidents that occur in alcohol-related times is analysed, controlling for the underlying level of crime in the community by using the rate of incidents that occur in non-alcohol-related times. It is found that rural communities in Australia are experiencing a sizeable amount of potentially avoidable harm due to risky alcohol use. Thirdly, the value of reducing alcohol-related harm in these communities, in terms of the amount households are willing to pay for these reductions, is estimated using contingent valuation methods. Individuals’ willingness to pay for a percentage reduction in alcohol-related harm is estimated using both a postal questionnaire for the 20 communities, plus a face-to-face questionnaire conducted in two of these communities. The face-to-face questionnaire is also used to conduct a double-bounded dichotomous choice experiment, to investigate the willingness of households to pay for a reduction in a number of different types of alcohol-related harm. Finally, the views on the optimal policy options to reduce alcohol-related harm for rural communities in Australia are examined for both professionals and the general public. A sample of drug and alcohol (D&A) professionals were asked to allocate a budget of $100,000 to a number of interventions in order to reduce alcohol-related harm in a hypothetical rural community. The D&A professionals most commonly selected interventions include training general practitioners (GPs), targeting high-risk groups, developing a harm-reduction code of practice, expanding social work services and the training of emergency department staff. Additionally, individuals from the general public were asked via a postal questionnaire to allocate a percentage of total funds to eight intervention areas in order to reduce alcohol-related harm in their communities. The top three intervention areas given the most funding, on average, by the public were school-based interventions, educational messages in the media, and greater police enforcement. There is no doubt that alcohol consumption causes a substantial amount of harm for rural communities within Australia. This thesis has provided information to inform the development of interventions tailored to specific communities and has derived estimates which can be used to help evaluate the cost-benefit of these interventions. There is still additional research to be done in order to obtain more accurate estimates of the exact effect alcohol has on rural communities and thus comprehensively evaluate which interventions are likely to be the most cost-effective in reducing this harm.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 180 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 154-169).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-92).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 143 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (part col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-108).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-53)

Sweden, as a country, has set the goal to achieve a fossil independent vehicle fleet by 2030, which means that Sweden has to reduce its CO2 emissions by 80 percent. Sources argue that the regulations and different implementations that have been done are not enough to reach the 80 percent reduction in time. The purpose of this paper is to analyze consumers’ preferences towards alternative fuel vehicles by estimating the willingness to pay for rental cars in Sweden. The paper also tries to define the explanatory factors for choosing an alternative fuel vehicle. The data used in this thesis was collected through a choice experiment questionnaire that was distributed to employees and students at Luleå University of Technology. The study concludes that respondents have a willingness to pay at approximately SEK 280 extra to rent and use an electric rental car.

Recent theoretical literature in social policy argued that climate change posed a new risk to the states and called for transformation from a traditional welfare state to an "eco" state. From a theoretical point of view, different welfare regimes may manage environmental/climate change risks in a similar way to social risks. However, not much has been done to explore the issue empirically. To this end, this paper aims to investigate public attitudes towards environmental and traditional welfare policies given that environmental change is a new social risk the welfare states have to address. Do individuals that care for one area also care for the other? That is, do the preferences in these two policy spheres complement or substitute one another? We test these hypotheses both at the individual- and country-level, using data from 14 countries included in all three waves (1993, 2000, and 2010) of the environmental module in the International Social Survey Programme. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between attitudes towards income redistribution (indicator of support for welfare policy) and willingness to pay for environmental protection (indicator of support for environmental policy). Our findings suggest that attitudes in the two areas are substitutes in the total sample, but that the relationship is very small and only statistically significant in some specifications. When we explore country differentials, we observe clear heterogeneity in the relationship, which can be explained by differences in political and historical contexts across countries.

We present the results of a study designed to measure the impact of interruptive advertising on consumers' willingness to pay for products bearing the advertiser's brand. Subjects participating in a controlled experiment were exposed to ads that diverted their attention from a computer game they were testing. We found that ads significantly lowered subjects' willingness to pay for a good associated with the advertised brand. We did not find conclusive evidence that providing some level of user control over the appearance of ads mitigated the negative impact of ad interruption. Our results contribute to the research on the economic impact of advertising, and introduce a method of measuring actual (as opposed to self-reported) willingness to pay in experimental marketing research.

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A manganese ore dump and oil tank farm have been situated in the Port Elizabeth harbour for more than forty years. Although these facilities are independently operated and managed, they are viewed as one distinct disamenity, and there is strong local opposition to their continued location in the harbour. The negative environmental impacts (for example, water and air pollution) caused by the ore dump and tank farm have been well documented. This pollution takes the form of oil leaks from the oil tank farm, and ore dust pollution from the manganese ore dump. The air pollution caused by the manganese ore dump is a result of the dump currently being an open air handling and storage facility. The ore dust is dispersed into the air due to strong prevailing winds in the Bay and has resulted in respiratory illnesses of residents living in close proximity to the facility. Oil pollution, due to leakages experienced at the oil tank farm, has extended far beyond the periphery of the harbour. Inter alia, there has been a decline in local fish populations, as well as a decline in passive and active use satisfaction associated with the adjacent beach area, i.e. Kings Beach. These oil leakages, first reported in 2001, could have a detrimental effect on the Blue Flag status of this beach, as well as the Blue Flag status of other beaches situated further up the coast. The lease agreements for the oil tank farm and manganese ore dump are set to expire in 2014 and 2016, respectively. As yet, there is no consensus on when these disamenities will be (re)moved. In order to mitigate the secondary impacts of these facilities, both of them should be removed. Although these impacts should be the focus of public policy debates and cost-benefit assessments, no direct valuation method exists to value the economic cost to affected communities. Instead, non-market valuation methods, such as the contingent valuation method (CVM), are often applied to assign values to these economic costs. This study seeks to determine Nelson Mandela Bay households‟ preferences for the immediate removal of the manganese ore dump and oil tank farm from the Port Elizabeth harbour. This case was selected since it represents a current public policy debate issue that has not been resolved. Monetary estimates of people‟s preferences for the removal of pollution-creating activities can assist policy-makers and other stakeholders when locating industries in an urban setting. These estimates can also be of use in understanding the benefits associated with air and water quality improvement projects. The primary valuation technique used in this study is the CVM. This method was chosen as it is capable of measuring the economic significance of lost passive-use values of individuals affected by negative externalities. Both a non-parametric and a parametric estimate of mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) were derived. On average, a respondent was willing to pay a once-off amount of between R47.09 (non-parametric estimate) and R93.21 (parametric estimate). Non-parametric estimation (via the Turnbull estimator) was conducted to test the sensitivity of the parametric results (via a logit model). The logit model‟s results showed that the probability of a „yes‟ answer to the referendum question varies with a number of covariates in a realistic and expected way, which offers some support for the construct validity of this CV study. Household income, education, age, and disamenity awareness were significant determinants of individuals‟ responses to the WTP question. A summary of the findings of WTP estimates for both parametric and non-parametric analysis is provided in Table 1. Three primary recommendations stem from this study. Firstly, the study used a relatively small sample size. Although it was sufficient for a pilot study it is recommended that future research into this issue should aim for a much larger sample size to ensure more precise estimates of the WTP for the removal of the disamenity. Secondly, the conservative non-parametric mean WTP estimate should be used as opposed to the higher parametric mean WTP estimate. Third, the aggregate WTP estimation constitutes only a partial analysis of cost. A number of other factors and value streams need to be analysed and compared with the cost estimates generated by this study if adequate holistic decision-making is to take place with regard to the removal of the manganese ore dump and oil tank farm. More specifically, the total WTP estimated in this study should be viewed as only one input into a comprehensive social cost-benefit analysis to determine the desirability of the removal of this disamenity for wider society.