Risk reduction and the privatization option: First principles

Abstract

TheJIEE vision is to be an internationdyrecognizedresearchbased institute solving key problems at the interface of energy, environment, and economics.The JIEE mission is to harness and enhance the collective resources of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the University of Tennessee, to create synergy among partners, and to attract and assist outstanding professionals in order to find solutions to key national and international E3 issues.Onefocus area of the JIEE is biomass energy. JIEE, with its partners, will provide leadership on the system of biomass energy with special thrusts on infrastructure and institutional support as well as new paradigms that value technological benefits to society beyond energy alone. It follows that this knowledge will help define how technologies can be better implemented.You may subscribe to the JIEE Bioenergy Listserver by sending an email message to listproc@solar.rtd.utk.edu with the following message in the body of the email: SUBSCRIBE JIEEBIoE your hst name your last name .

Contingent Valuation and Social Choices Concerning Public Goods : An Overview of Theory, Methods and Issues

“…Early experimental studies revealed that hypothetical referenda were likely to generate biased estimates of willingness to pay at the aggregate level (Cummings et al [1997]). They argued that modifications to the survey design, such as cheap talk or learning designs (Bjornstad et al [1997]; Cummings and Taylor [1999]), were capable of mitigating this bias.…”

“…Bias at this level is an issue of incentive compatibility and reflects an individuals' propensity to demand reveal under an elicitation mechanism or question (Burton et al [in press]). These authors review a number of studies (Vossler and Kerkvliet [2003]; Brown et al, 2003, Cummings andTaylor [[1999]]; Bjornstad et al [1997]) incorporating both induced value experiments 8 and comparisons between field surveys and actual voting behavior find little evidence of bias in hypothetical referenda at the aggregate level, but bias remaining at the individual level. It appears, therefore, that that the evidence regarding the reliability of hypothetical surveys is mixed.…”