Nanotechnology is one of the key innovative technologies in the present century. The food industry has applied this technology in each of its sectors. Nanotechnology has tremendous potential in food and agriculture, including advancing agricultural cultivation and food production, enhancing food nutrition and flavor, and improving food packaging and preservation. However, the novel properties of nanoscale materials that allow beneficial applications are also accompanied with uncertainties, even unknown risks. A number of studies have examined public understanding as well as acceptance of nanotechnology via surveys in both the US and Europe. However, most of these studies concentrated on public attitudes in general. Few works focused on specific products, let alone food or food related products. This project will contribute to the literature by calculating monetary valuations (i.e., willingness-to-pay) for canola oil where new techniques are utilized. Using choice experiment survey data, consumers’ valuations for nano attributes were estimated with choice models. As implied, consumers were willing to pay $0.95 less for a typical bottle (48 fl. oz.) of canola oil if it was produced from nanoscale-modified seed; $0.51 less if the final products were packed with nanotechnology-enhanced packaging technique; and no significant difference was found for oil that was designed with health enhancing nano-engineered oil drops, which would require interaction with the human digestive system. Additionally, the results revealed unobserved heterogeneities among respondents in their willingness-to-pay for canola oil attributes. Aligned with descriptive results, 46.7% of the respondents reported that they were optimistic about new technology applied to food products. While a significant portion of the respondents (42.8%) indicated that they might gain benefits at the same level as risks, there were a slightly larger proportion of the respondents who feared they might be exposed to more risks than benefits through nanofoods. Further analysis included respondents’ attitudes and opinions as well as their demographic and socioeconomic characteristics toward the goal of understanding the underlying behavior difference. Findings from this study will help bridge the gap between scientific innovation and public policy and social-economic concerns. Implications for government policy that can be efficiently used to monitor and regulate these technologies were also investigated.

The Real Food Challenge (RFC) is a national student movement that is trying to harness student power to shift $1 billion'roughly 20% of college and university food budgets across the country towards local, ecologically sound, fair, and humane food sources, what they call "real" food, by 2020. The University of Vermont (UVM) was the fifth university in the country to sign the Real Food Campus Commitment, pledging to shift at least 20% of its own food budget towards "real" food by 2020. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the implementation of the Real Food Campus Commitment at UVM. In order to examine the demand for "real" food on the UVM campus I analyzed a survey of 904 undergraduate students that used contingent valuation to evaluate students' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the "real" food attributes. I found that a majority of students are willing to pay a positive premium for "real" food, but that the average premium is quite small. Furthermore, I found that student characteristics and attitudes significantly influence WTP. Specifically, gender, residency, college, and attitudes about price and origin of food are significant predictors of WTP. To evaluate the potential of the RFC to significantly transform the food system I analyzed the activities and components of the RFC using the framework of food democracy. In addition to analyzing the activities and components of the RFC as a national movement, I analyzed the movement as it is being realized on the ground at UVM. My analysis reveals that the RFC has the potential to transform the food system because it promotes all five dimensions of food democracy as both a national movement and as realized on the ground at one university. Both of my analyses suggest that the RFC has significant potential to transform the food system at UVM, but that food systems education for the greater student body will crucial to see that potential fulfilled. This thesis can contribute to the success of the Real Food movement at UVM by identifying areas of weakness and opportunities for improvement in terms of increasing student preference for "real" food and promoting food democracy. Moreover, this thesis may be useful for national RFC staff and other campuses that are implementing the RFC, as it demonstrates how the RFC is being played out on the ground at an institution that is at the forefront of the movement.

This study uses logistic regression to estimate the probability of choosing the brand-name drug despite the presence of cheaper generics given patient and drug characteristics in the Czech pharmaceutical market in the period 2009-2013. Results of the analysis may help guide policies to decrease pharmaceutical costs. In order to motivate people who are more likely to choose the original version of drug, policy makers may impose higher copayments and lower subsidies on the original drugs which they use. Additionally, two supplementary analyses were applied to sub-sectors of the pharmaceutical market: antihypertensive drugs and antibiotics. Fixed effects logistic regression is employed to test the robustness of the results.

Les tentatives récentes d’explication des liens entre l’économique et l’environnement ont permis de mettre en chantier de nouveaux domaines de recherches à priori, forts intéressants. La question globale qui se pose aux villes de l’Afrique Sub-saharienne est de savoir comment les autorités peuvent gérer de façon durable les déchets ménagers qui ne cessent de croître. Cette thèse aborde cette question au travers deux préoccupations importantes. Bien que la gestion des déchets ménagers ait été confiée à des acteurs privés, l’efficacité attendue n’est pas obtenue. En mobilisant les éléments de la théorie des externalités et de la théorie des contrats, nous avons montré que pour une intervention des acteurs privés dans le secteur des déchets ménagers soit efficace, il faut que les deux acteurs (municipalité et acteurs privés) puissent se mettre en rapport pour surmonter les difficultés relatives à l’asymétrie d’information et au comportement opportuniste qui risquent de faire obstacle à l’échange. La deuxième préoccupation concerne la responsabilisation des ménages quant aux déchets qu’ils produisent. Les études empiriques menées montrent d’une part qu’une tarification incitative dans les quartiers de haut et moyen standing permettra à la fois à la municipalité de mobiliser des ressources financières supplémentaires pour financer le service et d’autre part de réduire le volume des déchets destiné à la décharge finale. D’autre part, la promotion du tri à la source accompagnée de la mise en place d’un marché parfait de récupération de déchets triés incitera les ménages à faible revenu et vivant dans les quartiers de bas standing à participer au tri. / Recent attempts explaining the links between economy and environment allowed to start interesting new horizons of research. The main question that arises for the cities of Sub-Saharan Africa is to know how the authorities can sustainably manage the growing household waste. This thesis addresses this issue with two important concerns. Although the management of household wastehas been outsourced to private players, the expected effectiveness is not obtained. By mobilizing elements of the theory of externalities and contract theory, we showed that for effective private intervention in the household waste sector, it is necessary that the two actors (municipality and privateactors) could have a strong connection to overcome the difficulties related to the asymmetry of information and opportunistic behavior that generates the risk of having barrier for exchange. The second concern is related to the households’ responsibility for the waste they produce. The Empirical studies show, on the one hand, that pricing incentive in the areas of upper and middle class willenable, at the same time, the Municipality to generate the additional financial resources for financing their service and, on the other hand, to reduce the volume of waste destined for final discharge. Secondly, promotion of source separation accompanied by the establishment of a perfect market recovery of sorted waste encourages low-income households and inhabitants in the neighborhood of lower classes to participate in sorting.

xiii, 123 p. : ill. (some col.) A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / To complement a varied and growing literature in health economics, this dissertation is conducted in three substantive parts. First, I investigate the effect of public policy on health use and health outcomes, exploiting variation in the generosity of Medicaid eligibility to low income pregnant women across states and over time to identify an effect on common, yet costly, pregnancy complications. I provide new evidence on this important question from a nationally representative sample of hospital discharges for 12 states between 1989 and 2001. Second, I explore heterogeneity in individual demand for health risk reductions. Utilizing individual stated-preference data from matching surveys conducted in both Canada and the United States, I employ the Value of a Statistical Illness Profile framework to investigate differences in average willingness-to-pay (WTP) for health risk reductions across the two different cultures. Although existing literature has allowed for systematic variation in age to explain differences in health care demand, the differences in WTP have not been explained through systematic variation across other socio-demographic characteristics, subjective risks of the diseases in question, or differences between the Canadian and U.S. health care systems. I extend the literature by controlling for an expanded set of observable individual heterogeneity and comment on the degree to which estimates can be applied across cultures to inform varying policy decisions. The third paper studies factors affecting adolescent health risk behavior. Previous study finds that community size and the degree to which social networks are interconnected affect three economically significant outcomes: the frequency of adolescent misbehavior in school, degree of perceived safety in school, and grade performance. Other research has suggested peer effects on smoking behavior and drinking behavior. I investigate the degree to which social connectedness impacts adolescent health, specifically looking at outcomes for drinking and smoking, and the degree to which these effects can be disentangled from more commonly studied "peer effects" in health behavior. / Committee in charge: Trudy Cameron, Co-Chairperson, Economics; Glen Waddell, Co-Chairperson, Economics; Anne van den Nouweland, Member, Economics; Jessica Greene, Member, Planning Public Policy & Mgmt; David Levin, Outside Member, Mathematics

Le paiement des frais hospitaliers par les patients est une raisons majeures de pauvreté en Chine, notamment en milieu rural en Chine. Afin d’améliorer l’efficacité et l’égalité de financement des soins de santé en milieu rural en Chine ; on va faire une étude de faisabilité concernant la mise en place de la micro-assurance sociale ainsi que la réassurance en milieu rural en Chine.Cette thèse est composée de quatre parties. La première partie est la recherche de la problématique et le justificatif de l’étude. La deuxième partie est consacrée à la présentation générale de la situation sanitaire en Chine, y compris l’assurance maladie en Chine, que ce soit en milieu rural ou en milieu urbain. Dans la troisième partie, une étude des conditions d’application de la micro-assurance médicale en milieu rural a été faite. Enfin, on va envisager un système de réassurance sociale pour la micro-assurance qui pourrait être créée.Selon les cotisations calculées et la disposition à payer moyenne, on peut dire que la mise en place de la micro-assurance en milieu rural serait faisable. / The payment of hospital fees by patients is a major reason for poverty in China, especially in rural China. To improve the effectiveness and equity of healthcare financing in rural China, we’ll make a feasibility study for the establishment of micro-insurance and reinsurance in rural China. This thesis is composed of four parts. The first part researches the problematic and the justification of this study. The second part is to present the general health situation in China, including health insurance in China, whether rural or urban. In the third part, a study on the application conditions of micro-health insurance in rural areas has been made. Finally, we will consider a system of social reinsurance for micro-insurance that could be created. According to the contribution calculated and the average willingness to pay, we can say that the establishment of micro-insurance in rural areas would be feasible.

In 1993, a travel study was conducted along the Wasatch front in Utah (Research Systems Group INC, 2013). The main purpose of this study was to assess travel behavior to understand the needs for future growth in Utah. Since then, the Research Service Group (RSG), conducted a new study in 2012 to understand current travel preferences in Utah. This survey, called the Residential Choice Stated Preference survey, asked respondents to make ten choice comparisons between two hypothetical homes. Each home in the choice comparison was described by different attributes, those attributes that were used are, type of neighborhood, distance from important destinations, distance from access to public transport, street design, parking availability, commute distance to work, and price. The survey was designed to determine the extent to which Utah residents prefer alternative household attributes in a choice selection. Each attribute contained multiple characteristic levels that were randomly combined to define each alternative home in each choice comparison. Those choices can be explained by Random Utility Theory. Multinomial logistic regression will be used to estimate changes in utility when alternative attribute levels are present in a choice comparison. Using the coefficient estimate for price, a marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for each attribute level will be calculated. This paper will use two different approaches to obtain MWTP estimates. Method One will use housing and rent price to recode the price variable in dollar terms as defined in the discrete choice experiment. Method Two will recode the price variable as an average ten percent change in home value to extrapolate a one-time payment for homes. As a result, we found that it is possible to obtain willingness to pay estimates using both methods. The resulting interpretations in dollar terms became more relatable. Metropolitan planning organization can use these results to understand how residents perceive home value in dollar terms in the context of location-based attributes for homes.

<p>The thesis consists of a summary and four papers, concerned with food consumption, behavior associated with overconsumption of food and analysis of the economic policy reforms designed to improve health.</p><p>Paper [I] estimates a hedonic price model on breakfast cereal, crisp bread and potato product data. The purpose is to examine the marginal implicit prices for food characteristics associated with health. A trade-off exists between health and taste. For instance, sugar, salt and fat are tasty but can be unhealthy if overconsumed; whereas fiber is unhealthy if underconsumed. If the marginal implicit price for sugar is negative, consumers value health over its taste. Our results are the marginal implicit price for sugar is negative for breakfast cereals and crisp bread—consumers value health over the taste of sugar. For salt, we find the opposite—a positive marginal implicit price, suggesting people value its taste over health. For fat, we find a negative marginal implicit price of fat in breakfast cereals and potato products containing salt, whereas we find a positive marginal implicit price of fat in hard bread and potato products that contain no salt. For the one healthy characteristic, fiber, we find a negative marginal implicit price in breakfast cereals and a positive implicit price in hard bread.</p><p>Paper [II] uses a general equilibrium model to derive the optimal policy if people overconsume unhealthy food due to self-control problems. Individuals lacking self-control have a preference for immediate gratification, at the expense of future health. We show the optimal policy to help individuals with self-control problems to behave rationally is a combination of subsidies for the health capital stock and the physical capital stock.</p><p>Paper [III] estimates a demand system for grain consumption based on household panel data and detailed product characteristics, and simulate the effect on grain consumption of economic policy reforms designed to encourage a healthier grain diet. Our results imply it is more cost-efficient to subsidize the fiber content than to subsidize products rich in fiber given the goal to increase the fiber intake of the average Swedish household. Our results also imply subsidies alone give rise to an increase in fiber, and to other unhealthy nutrients. Also, subsidies alone have negative effects on the budget. We therefore simulate the effect of policy reforms in which the subsidies are funded either by taxes on the content of unhealthy nutrients or by taxes on products that are overconsumed. Our results suggest that price instruments need to be substantial to change consumption. For instance, removing the VAT on products rich in fiber has little effect on consumption.</p><p>Paper [IV] explores habit persistence in breakfast cereal purchases. To perform the analysis, we use a mixed multinomial logit model, on household panel data on breakfast cereal purchases. If habit persistence in consumption is strong, short and long-run responses to policy reforms will differ. Our results are breakfast cereal purchases are strongly associated with habit persistence. Our results also imply preferences for breakfast cereals are heterogeneous over households and the strength of habit persistence is similar over educational and income groups.</p>

The thesis consists of a summary and four papers, concerned with food consumption, behavior associated with overconsumption of food and analysis of the economic policy reforms designed to improve health. Paper [I] estimates a hedonic price model on breakfast cereal, crisp bread and potato product data. The purpose is to examine the marginal implicit prices for food characteristics associated with health. A trade-off exists between health and taste. For instance, sugar, salt and fat are tasty but can be unhealthy if overconsumed; whereas fiber is unhealthy if underconsumed. If the marginal implicit price for sugar is negative, consumers value health over its taste. Our results are the marginal implicit price for sugar is negative for breakfast cereals and crisp bread—consumers value health over the taste of sugar. For salt, we find the opposite—a positive marginal implicit price, suggesting people value its taste over health. For fat, we find a negative marginal implicit price of fat in breakfast cereals and potato products containing salt, whereas we find a positive marginal implicit price of fat in hard bread and potato products that contain no salt. For the one healthy characteristic, fiber, we find a negative marginal implicit price in breakfast cereals and a positive implicit price in hard bread. Paper [II] uses a general equilibrium model to derive the optimal policy if people overconsume unhealthy food due to self-control problems. Individuals lacking self-control have a preference for immediate gratification, at the expense of future health. We show the optimal policy to help individuals with self-control problems to behave rationally is a combination of subsidies for the health capital stock and the physical capital stock. Paper [III] estimates a demand system for grain consumption based on household panel data and detailed product characteristics, and simulate the effect on grain consumption of economic policy reforms designed to encourage a healthier grain diet. Our results imply it is more cost-efficient to subsidize the fiber content than to subsidize products rich in fiber given the goal to increase the fiber intake of the average Swedish household. Our results also imply subsidies alone give rise to an increase in fiber, and to other unhealthy nutrients. Also, subsidies alone have negative effects on the budget. We therefore simulate the effect of policy reforms in which the subsidies are funded either by taxes on the content of unhealthy nutrients or by taxes on products that are overconsumed. Our results suggest that price instruments need to be substantial to change consumption. For instance, removing the VAT on products rich in fiber has little effect on consumption. Paper [IV] explores habit persistence in breakfast cereal purchases. To perform the analysis, we use a mixed multinomial logit model, on household panel data on breakfast cereal purchases. If habit persistence in consumption is strong, short and long-run responses to policy reforms will differ. Our results are breakfast cereal purchases are strongly associated with habit persistence. Our results also imply preferences for breakfast cereals are heterogeneous over households and the strength of habit persistence is similar over educational and income groups.

Within these years, in order to effectively arrange the limited resource that the government has owned and been able to allocate, a detailed financial plan and a well-structured evaluation system for any project is essential. Normally the most research topics issued are related to the economic effect of natural resources. In Taiwan, the article about analyzing the economic effect about the tour schemes proposed for the development of National Scenic Area is few and only at the beginning stage and the cause mainly is because of the common property of such schemes, i.e. the involvement of different departments needed. At this situation, effected by the different control froces from a varity of government departments and varied industry structures and developing progress in different areas, it is difficult to clarify and analyze the achievement for each department. Owing to this character, the economic effect related to such development schemes is difficult to conclude and it is even harder to evaluate whether or not the economic benefit is definitely resulted from the improving projects. The research topic is going to comprehend the economic effect caused by the medium-range scheme launched by National Scenic Areas, then is able to propose some feasible items to evaluate the economic effect and collect the figures the Cost-Efficiency Evaluation relaed to the effect. As to the intangible benefit, it is assessed by the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). The study takes the case of Penghu National Scenic Area to predict the economic effect between 2008 to 2011. From the research, it shows that the figure of Willing To Pay (WPA) among the tourists already visited the Penghu National Scenic Area is NT$6,943 and within 2008 and 2011, after the development implemented, the amount is going to raise to NT$9,638. Based on this raise, the economic revenue would be NT$415,691,000 caculated from the Prediction equation in 2008, NT$428,984,000 in 2009, NT$442,397,000 in 2010 and NT$ 455,933,000 in 2011. Within 10 year of available analytic fixed number of years, the 4-year Net Present Value¡]NPV¡^ ¡]valuta of 2008 year ¡^ will be NT$1,766,586,000 based on the discount rate at 2% and the 4 year Benefit-Cost Ratio, B/C ratio is 3.05>1. From this result, the 2008-2011 development plan itself has demostrated its economic feasibility.