The drug issue has a massive impact on almost every society nowadays. It has deep influences in people\'s quotidian and an almost ubiquitous growth in consumption. This study aims at assessing whether the textitde facto legal sale of cannabis influences real estate prices. Evaluating how these prices change gives us some notion of the externalities involved in those sales and how people regard it. We organized a panel with georeferenced data from Air Bnb lodgings offered in Amsterdam, from May 2014 until July 2017. During this period, several coffeeshops were closed due to new legislation. We estimate that losing the closest coffeeshop, when it is within a 250m radius from the lodging, decreases the renting price, on average, on 3%, and when it is farther has no significant impact. / A questão das drogas hoje em dia possui impacto massivo em praticamente todas as sociedades. Ela possui influências profundas no cotidiano das pessoas e um ubíquo crescimento no consumo. Esse estudo visa investigar se a venda legal de maconha influencia preços de imóveis. Avaliando como esses preços mudam nos dá uma noção tanto das externalidades envolvidas no processo de venda, quanto de como as pessoas se sentem com relação a elas. Organizamos um painel com dados georeferenciados de apartamentos do Air Bnb ofertados em Amsterdam, de Maio de 2014 à Julho de 2017. Durante esse período, diversos coffeeshops foram fechados devido a nova legislação local. Nós estimamos que este fechamento, quando ocorrido a menos de 250m de um apartamento, diminui o preço do aluguel, em média, em quase 3%, e não possui influências significantes para maiores distâncias.

Because of the impact of stress on health, it is important to understand the variables that underlie cardiovascular reactivity to stress because it may lead to more focused targets of intervention for helping people to reduce or otherwise better manage their stress. The purpose of the present study was to answer the following questions: does lack of eudaimonic well-being (a combination of psychological and social well-being) predict increased cardiovascular reactivity to stress in a clinically distressed population? And does increased eudaimonic well-being protect against increased cardiovascular reactivity to stress when hedonic well-being (a combination of positive affect and life satisfaction) is low and depression and stress are high? If so, then it may be possible to reduce the effects of stress on health even if depression and stress are present. One hundred twenty-nine college students (ages 18-29) who were clinically distressed were administered a questionnaire that included questions about demographic variables and measures of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, depression, and general perceived stress. After answering the questionnaire, a baseline reading of cardiovascular activity was taken. After the baseline reading, participants were subjected to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), an interpersonal stressor that consists of an anticipation period, a speech, and a math task. Measurements of cardiovascular activity were taken throughout the TSST. I predicted that lower levels of eudaimonic and hedonic well-being, mental health, and higher amounts of general perceived stress would predict increased cardiovascular reactivity to the TSST as measured by systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and heart rate. Then, should the prior hypothesis be true, I predicted that higher eudaimonic well-being will suppress the effect of lower hedonic will-being, lower mental health, and higher general perceived stress on cardiovascular activity to acute stress. Results of the study found no effect of eudaimonic well-being, hedonic well-being, depression, and general perceived stress on cardiovascular reactivity during the TSST. The results suggest that there is no relationship between well-being, depression, and general perceived stress and cardiovascular reactivity to stress in a young college student population.

To be present online is seen, in recent time, as a necessity for fashion companies in order to sustain on the market. Since online shopping lack the opportunity for customers to try on purchased products it entails a risk of experiencing dissatisfaction when orders are received. Through this, customers demand determinants that ensure safety within the purchase. Different kinds of customers might, however, possess various motivations for purchasing, stressing the requirements for variety in service value deliverance. Therefore, purchase and return policies comprise a significant importance in order to create attractiveness towards customers. The problem, though, consists of the balance between offering lenient purchase and return policies, to create competitiveness, but still considering excessive purchasing and depreciation of product value. There are several determinants affecting the shopping experience online. These were combined, with components of an online purchase, in a theoretical model to empirically test the key conceptual ideas embedded in the consumption system perspective. Further, primary data was conducted through company interviews and focus group interviews, with the aim to explore customer behavior online. Findings, from interviews compared with secondary data, analyzed through the theoretical model, indicates that the right of withdrawal and its additional components such as charges, time and inconvenience is interpreted differently by different customers. Further, it is up to e-tailers to discover the benefits and drawbacks of different policies in order to detect the most suited policy for them and their customers.

The physical attributes of the service setting are critical differentiators among service providers that significantly influence customers' emotional responses. Following the changes in the airport industry and addressing the gap in the existing research, this study aims to investigate the relationship between physical servicescape elements, emotional responses of enjoyment and anxiety and word-of-mouth in the context of airport environment. This study was conducted in three phases. The first phase incorporated an EFA conducted on a pilot study sample of 174 respondents that proposed a six-factor structure of airport service environment. In the second phase of the study, a self-administered online questionnaire was sent to an online marketing agency, resulting in 311 valid responses. This phase included a CFA that confirmed the validity of the instrument proposed in the pilot study, recommending the following six airport servicescape factors: design, scent, functional organization, air/lighting conditions, seating and cleanliness. Finally, an SEM testing suggested that airport design features and pleasant scent have a positive influence on traveler enjoyment, further generating positive WOM. Nevertheless, poor functional organization and inadequate air and lighting conditions are major predictors of traveler anxiety that leads to negative recommendations. According to the findings, this study offers several implications for the airport practitioners and developers. Based on the service environment frameworks established in the previous research, this study developed a valid instrument for examining travelers' perceptions of the airport environment. As a result, emphasizing hedonic attributes of the airport environment such as aroma, colors and d[eacute]cor would enhance traveler enjoyment and experience. In addition, airport practitioners are advised to provide successful wayfinding through the facility, appropriate luminosity, air conditioning, and temperature that would reduce travelers' stress and anxiety during their stay. Finally, design was showed to be the most influential environmental stimuli, justifying the need for of airport modernization and renovations.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the extent of competition between generic products and therapeutic substitutes under different regulatory regimes in the European Union (EU) pharmaceutical industry. In particular, this study investigates generic competition among the five largest European pharmaceutical markets; the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, with comprehensive IMS data for 10 years (1994-2003), in order to estimate the effect of generic entry on drug prices at the product level. This analysis finds that generic entry has a negative effect on prices in countries with free pricing originator market, whereas in EU countries with strict price and reimbursement regulation, generic competition is ineffective and/or counterproductive. Fewer generics and less competitive late entrants are consistent with incentives in regulated environments: low regulated prices for originator products discourage generic entry following patent expiration. These findings suggest that regulation of both manufacturers' prices and retail pharmacy prices undermines price competition in the off-patent sector, and that budgetary savings from generic price competition are not realized in countries with strict regulatory systems.

The thesis presented consists of two essays that analyze input substitution and decision making in crop and livestock production systems. The first essay consists of a whole-farm analysis that sought to optimize feed mixes and enterprise combinations for an organic dairy operation in the Southeastern United States. This was accomplished through mathematical programming where whole-farm net returns were maximized, and total feed costs were minimized simultaneously for four milk production level cases. Additionally, the sensitivity of the system and break-even milk price were explored. Results suggest substitutability in ration components where an increase in supplemental feeds is justified by additional milk output and sales. The second essay utilizes econometric methods and hedonic modeling to explore factors that drive the price of row crop planters on the used machinery market. Factors relating to make, age, condition, planter specifications, sale type, spatial aspects, seasonality, and year of the sale were analyzed. Results suggest non-linear relationships for row number and age relative to price and interactions between variables make and age that imply varying depreciation depending on the manufacturer. An additional break-even analysis relating to pasture yields and planter purchase price was conducted to explore these primary concepts in further detail.

This thesis investigates the use of hedonic pricing models to value intangible assets that are owned by firms. This novel approach falls within the neoclassical methodology for the valuation of financial assets, and extends the framework by ordering an alternative methods by which assets may be compared. The firms performance, as measured by reported financial data and embodied in the DuPont ratios of the firm, is used to derive the characteristics of intangible assets. The shadow prices of these characteristics are estimated and used to derive a market-related value for the intangible assets. The empirical results support using this approach to value intangible assets.

There is a particular class of products where people must visit the point of production in order to be consumers, and these products are normally lifestyle, tourism or leisure services. Examples include environmentally-based leisure facilities, housing, and tourist accommodation. Frequently the assertion is made that location makes one product 'superior' to another, in terms of both its production and consumption. This study enquires into the asserted significance of location in product differentiation, with special reference to hospitality and tourism products. The study is particularly concerned with commercially tradeable products offered to a consumer market by a number of competitive firms, rather than being concerned with one-off markets for assets for exclusive use, such as houses. By the use of characteristics theory, this study shows that the role of geographic location within a product such as hotel accommodation is that of a product-differentiating characteristic, or set of characteristics. However, the location of such a product is an example of a fixed, or unalterable, characteristic, once a supplier has entered a market. With most product-differentiating characteristics, a supplier can attain an optimal business position by enhancing the differentiation for as long as customers' willingness to pay 'the extra' (marginal revenue) exceeds or equals the cost (marginal cost) of product enhancement. However, a supplier cannot easily do this for a fixed characteristic. So what is the value of a particular location to a supplier of this type of product? This study develops a model to identify the specific elements of a location that are important to consumers, and then to estimate their values. It is argued that the values of each specific element (locational characteristics) should contribute in a predictable way to the overall price of each product in the market place. It is also shown in this study that individual suppliers who cannot identify, or who incorrectly set, prices based on locational characteristics face a measurable variation in demand from the mean in the market place. The model and methodology are tested empirically in the market for international-standard hotel accommodation on the Gold Coast, Queensland. It is shown that this constitutes a single, coherent market as a tourist destination, where a limited number of producers compete with differentiated products. Those product characteristics that are important to the market are identified, and it is shown that elements of location and other characteristics can be valued accurately across the market. The relationship between suppliers' 'overpricing' or 'underpricing' of their product characteristics and variations in demand from the market average is explored. This study therefore has implications for pricing strategy, as well as for land valuation and planning. The study can be seen as contributing primarily to the economics literature, in the area of industrial economics, but also to the marketing, and hospitality and tourism literature.

<p>This thesis comprises two papers exploring aspects of public finance and environmental economics in Namibia.</p><p>Paper [I] estimates the shadow prices of capital, labour and foreign exchange for the Namibian economy. The results suggest that the shadow price of capital for Namibia is 8%. The economic costs of Namibian labour, as a share of financial costs, are 32% for urban semi- and unskilled labour, and 54% for rural semi- and unskilled labour. The economic cost of foreign labour as a share of financial costs is 59%. The estimated range for the shadow exchange rate factor is between 7% and 14% for the Namibian economy.</p><p>Paper [II] studies the determinants of property prices in the township areas of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. The study reveals that properties located close to an environmental hazard, such as a garbage dump, sell at considerable discounts. On the other hand properties located near an environmentally favourable location, such as recreational open space, sell at a premium. These results provide evidence of the importance of environmental quality in lower income property markets in developing countries. It is therefore important for Namibian urban planners to incorporate environmental quality within the planning framework for lower income areas.</p>

<p>Recent research in the usability engineering field tends to emphasize, somewhat neglected, the need of incorporating the joy-of-use factor (the hedonic dimension of usability) into the design of user interfaces. However such design decisions have to be applied with care and proper modesty as they may diminish the product’s overall quality of use. Notions of pleasure and joy are non-task related and partially incompatible with pragmatic usability qualities hence achieving a proper balance is essential. </p><p>The thesis explores the question of how to establish a balance between pragmatic and hedonic dimensions of usability and whether it is possible to design a user interface which is both highly usable and enjoyable. </p><p>In order to address these questions a case study was performed, which required further development of an existing prototype, the Zenterio Halfpipe Desktop; an innovative, patented, cross-platform user interface. To achieve high product usability, principles of Human-Computer Interaction and User-Centered Design were applied. </p><p>The results of the study suggest that ensuring a high level of both aspects of usability: the pragmatic values (such as simplicity or controllability) as well as the hedonic values (such as originality or innovativeness), can result in a product which is perceived as highly usable and fun-to-use. The practical application of involving the joy-of-use factor shows a significant increase in the perceived software appeal. </p><p>Finally, shortcomings and limitations of the study are discussed followed by future work proposals.</p>