Contingent valuation has been given a psychological interpretation, by Kahneman and colleagues, that claims willingness to pay bids represent psychological attitudes rather than personal economic valuations. Evidence reported here shows the need to qualify the role of this attitudinal explanation. In contradiction to the attitudinal hypothesis, the decision to bid zero or positive appears to represent a complex psychological appraisal. Furthermore, evidence of bid clustering on currency denominations implies fundamental differences concerning how people respond to a monetary scale. Whether interpreted as charitable contributions or imprecise welfare estimates there are serious implications for how economists interpret and use stated preference responses. (authors' abstract)

The paper sheds some light on the issue of geographically mediated knowledge spillovers from university research activities to regional knowledge production in high tech industries in Austria. Knowledge spillovers occur because knowledge created by university is typically not contained within that institution, and thereby creates value for others. The conceptual framework for analysing geographic spillovers of university research on regional knowledge production is derived from Griliches (1979). It is assumed that knowledge production in the high tech sectors essentially depends on two major sources of knowledge: the university research that represents the potential pool of knowledge spillovers and R&D performed by the high tech sectors themselves. Knowledge is measured in terms of patents, university research and R&D in terms of expenditures. We refine the standard knowledge production function by modelling research spillovers as a spatially discounted external stock of knowledge. This enables us to capture regional and interregional spillovers. Using district-level data and employing spatial econometric tools evidence is found of university research spillovers that transcend the geographic scale of the political district in Austria. It is shown that geographic boundedness of the spillovers is linked to a decay effect. (authors' abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience

Multiple group memberships are the rule rather than the exception. Locally operating groups frequently offer the advantage of providing social recognition and higher marginal benefits to the individual, whereas globally operating groups may be more beneficial from a social perspective. Within a voluntary contribution environment we experimentally investigate the tension that arises when subjects belong to a smaller local and a larger global group. When the global public good is more efficient individuals first attempt to cooperate in the global public good. However, this tendency quickly unravels and cooperation in the local public good builds up. (author´s abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series