Our objective was to estimate the individual willingness to pay (WTP) for a COVID-19 vaccine and evaluate its predictors in the United States. A double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation with open-ended question technique was implemented based on the responses to a national survey administered during the first week of November 2020. The final sample size was 1285. The results showed that individual WTP values increased with income, whether a household member had any pre-existing condition, and perceived threat of the virus. The vaccine efficacy rate and duration of protection were found to be important factors for the respondents. The mean WTP for a vaccine with a 95 percent efficacy rate and 3-year protection (US$318.76) was approximately 35 percent greater than the vaccine with a 50 percent efficacy rate and 1-year protection (US$236.85). The initial aggregate direct benefit of the current vaccination program was estimated to be between 20 and 35.6 billion US dollars depending on the vaccine protection duration.

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Accelerated coastal erosion and elevated risks of flooding due to global warming put enormous burden on the ecosystems and economic health of coastal communities. Optimal policies to lessen these negative impacts require an estimation of their costs and benefits. The aim of this paper is to calculate the costs of beach erosion and flood risk through the valuation of property prices in Hilton Head Island, a barrier island located in South Carolina, USA. Spatial lag hedonic pricing was introduced in order to account for spatial autocorrelation in the dataset. The results show that properties that are located within the zone of high, or very high, flood risk experience a 15.6% reduction in value. The implicit price of being located close to an eroded beach is approximately 26% of the price of an oceanfront property. However, this negative impact on property value diminishes with distance from the shoreline.