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on Discrete Choice Models |
| By: | Phoebe Koundouri; Theodoros Daglis; Conrad Landis; Akrivi Katifori; George Gkanias |
| Abstract: | The present work examines urban residents' preferences for biodiversity conservation, heatwave-related living conditions, and traffic-related noise and pollution, using a discrete choice experiment (DCE), also considering willingness-to-pay (WTP) and the influence of immersive virtual reality (VR) exposure, focusing on the metropolitan area of Athens. More importantly, VR exposure examined whether individuals' preferences were affected, focusing on its methodological contribution to the better planning of urban sustainability interventions. According to the results, biodiversity emerges as the most valued attribute, followed by heatwave measures, and then, traffic reduction, and VR exposure affects individuals' preferences for traffic measures, emphasizing its methodological value for improving urban sustainability decisions. |
| Keywords: | Discrete choice experiment, Urban sustainability, Biodiversity protection, Heatwave mitigation, Traffic pollution, Virtual reality, Environmental preferences |
| Date: | 2026–05–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aue:wpaper:2614 |
| By: | Howai, Niko; Bian, Alice; De Guzman-Mortillero, Arnica; Robinson, Elizabeth |
| Abstract: | Mangroves, especially in coastal areas, provide collective benefits to households, not just individuals. In this study, we undertake a comparison of individuals’ and couples’ intra-household decision-making on preferences for mangrove preservation expenditure and benefits using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in Palawan province in the Philippines. We find that men’s and women’s individual preferences differ when responding separately to the survey, and that their joint preferences align more with the men’s preferences. We also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of the population considered to be marginalised and exempt from contributing to mangrove preservation payments under the DCE. The findings from the exemption interviews suggest strong support for community co-management of mangrove marine protected areas (MPAs), provided that income-generating alternative livelihood projects are created. This, in turn, is combined with the couples’ preferences in the DCE. The resulting preferences for mangrove benefits and their valuation can be used to inform the design and financing of MPAs that include co-managed mangrove protection and restoration projects with locals, as well as policies for the use of mangrove resources on the island. |
| Keywords: | discrete choice experiment; intra-household preferences; in-depth interviews; hierarchical Bayesian logit; mangroves |
| JEL: | C11 C52 D12 Q57 |
| Date: | 2026–05–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138521 |
| By: | Buse Yavas Dewald (RWTH Aachen University); Ayshe Tugba Atasoy (Chair of Energy Economics and Management / Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), School of Business and Economics / E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University); Reinhard Madlener (Chair of Energy Economics and Management / Institute for Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), School of Business and Economics / E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University) |
| Abstract: | The 2021 Ahrtal flood in western Germany was one of the country’s costliest natural disasters and has reopened the debate on how flood protection should be financed. This paper examines residents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for future flood mitigation four years after the event. Using a contingent valuation survey of 103 residents, we estimate OLS and logistic regressions complemented by a bootstrap mediation analysis. We identify three main patterns. First, household income (ω = 0.508, p |
| Keywords: | willingness to pay; flood risk; disaster experience; risk perception; climate adaptation; Germany |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:fcnwpa:022472 |
| By: | Omar Abdel Haq; Amitabh Chandra; Tomáš Jagelka; Erzo F.P. Luttmer; Joshua Schwartzstein |
| Abstract: | Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on a prodigious corpus of human writing and may reveal human preferences over characteristics of life courses, such as income, longevity, and working conditions. We present OpenAI's GPT-5.4 and a broadly representative sample of Americans with pairs of life stories and ask them to choose the life they would prefer for themselves. A person's choice is better predicted by the LLM's choice than by another person’s choice over the same stories, and LLM valuations of several life attributes are similar to those derived from human responses. Our results suggest that LLM responses offer a scalable and cost-effective complement to existing methods for studying human preferences. |
| JEL: | D0 H0 I0 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35185 |
| By: | Ikonnikova, Svetlana; Steinbuks, Jevgenijs |
| Abstract: | This study introduces a novel quantitative method to assess the willingness to pay for emerging technologies, such as hydrogen, as substitutes for fossil fuels in industrial production. A three-step framework is developed to derive the willingness-to-pay function based on industrial competition and market entry theory, relying exclusively on pre-entry market information. First, a system of equations is specified linking domestic consumption, production, and prices to fossil input prices, which proxy marginal production costs. Second, the market equilibrium parameters required for numerical willingness-to-pay estimation are empirically estimated using industry-level data. Third, an industrial competition model incorporating entry by producers adopting new technology is constructed, allowing willingness to pay to be expressed as a function of conventional input costs, operational efficiency, and demand conditions. The framework is applied to hydrogen use in ammonia production, using consumption and trade data from 2000–24 for 16 major fertilizer-producing countries across four regions. The results highlight substantial cross-country heterogeneity, a binding hydrogen price threshold for large-scale adoption, and the limited effectiveness of carbon policies in accelerating hydrogen uptake. |
| Date: | 2026–03–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11338 |
| By: | Jeff Tjiong; Thijs Dekker (University of Leeds, Institute for Transport Studies); Stephane Hess (University of Leeds, Institute for Transport Studies); Marek Giergiczny (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences); Manuel Ojeda-Cabral (University of Leeds, Institute for Transport Studies); Mikołaj Czajkowski (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Stated choice surveys commonly used in public policy appraisal – such as in transport or environmental economics – often contrast a ‘free’ status quo alternative against a range of (policy) interventions which can be implemented at a cost. Limited attention has, however, been paid to the fact that the ‘free’ nature of the status quo (SQ) alternative may make the SQ alternative overly attractive due to the zero-price (ZP) effect. The ZP effect is a well-established notion in behavioural economics explaining the phenomenon that individuals tend to over-react to free alternatives. We present an experimental design setup allowing the separation of the ZP effect from the SQ effect together with the identification of non-linear sensitivities to costs. Choices made by students between different mobile broadband packages are used for illustrational purposes. Our analysis shows that the ZP effect is significant and the observed preference to remain in the SQ is largely due to the ZP effect. In practice, this may lead to biased welfare estimates for public policy packages if the ZP effect is not explicitly accounted for. Moreover, we also show that misspecification of the functional form for cost can lead to significant bias in WTP estimates and the ZP and SQ effects. |
| Keywords: | zero-price effect, stated choice experiments, status quo bias, willingness-to-pay, welfare analysis, discrete choice modelling, non-linear cost sensitivity, Box-Cox transformation, mobile broadband |
| JEL: | C25 D91 D61 Q51 L96 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-15 |
| By: | Kanayama, Yuki; Sadayuki, Taisuke |
| Abstract: | Why do derelict houses persist in urban areas despite strong demand, and what are their effects on neighbourhoods? This paper sheds light on a simple mechanism — speculation over future real estate value increases — that explains this puzzle, and employs empirical strategies to test this mechanism and quantify the disamenity effects of derelict houses. First, we develop a dynamic discrete choice model showing that expectations of future urban regeneration can incentivise property owners to delay redevelopment, thereby prolonging dereliction. Using variation induced by urban regeneration plans in central Tokyo, we find that properties located in designated regeneration areas are 6-14% more likely to be derelict. Second, we estimate the effect of derelict houses on nearby rents using future regeneration plans as an instrument — affecting dereliction but not current rents directly. Our 2SLS results show that one additional derelict house within 80 metres reduces rents by 1.5% on average. The effect is magnified to up to 4.5% in areas with low accessibility to public safety services, suggesting that renters’ concerns about fire and crime risks amplify the disamenity effects of derelict properties. Our findings suggest that rational forward-looking behaviour can reduce effective housing supply and generate negative neighbourhood externalities, highlighting an unintended consequence of place-based urban regeneration policies. |
| JEL: | D62 R11 R21 R31 R52 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138519 |
| By: | Klumpenhouwer, Willem; Karner, Alex (The University of Texas at Austin); Rahman, Md Hamidur (The University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | Transportation equity researchers typically quantify either inequality (e.g., how equal are distributions between groups?) or sufficiency (e.g., how many and what kinds of people lack adequate access to the transportation resources?). Sufficiency analyses offer more actionable insights that can be used to mitigate disadvantage, but fundamental analytical methods for sufficiency analyses are not well developed. To advance this area of research and practice, this paper investigates three approaches to measuring sufficiency through the lens of public transport access to jobs: (i) fraction of total regional destinations reachable, (ii) competitiveness with auto access, and (iii) population-weighted percentile measures. We use a class of decomposable Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measures to understand the sensitivity of overall levels of disadvantage to the choice of disadvantage lines (sufficiency thresholds) and other parameters, in the context of seven U.S. urban regions. We find that fractional and auto competitiveness measures produce similar results and are highly sensitive to the choice of disadvantage line, population-weighted percentile measures may allow for better comparisons across demographic groups, and by most reasonable definitions the vast majority of residents (80+%) in an area might be considered to experience access disadvantage. |
| Date: | 2026–05–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:quysr_v1 |
| By: | Mehrzad Khosravi; Max Kleiman-Weiner; Hema Yoganarasimhan |
| Abstract: | Many consumer decisions are repeated choices under uncertainty. Standard models capture these decisions using Bayesian learning and dynamic programming: consumers update beliefs from feedback and use those beliefs to guide future choices. In many markets, however, learning does not restart when consumers enter a new context: prior experience with a brand, product, or provider can shape beliefs in later, related decisions. We study this cross-context knowledge transfer, or meta-learning, in sequential choice. We design a hierarchical laboratory task in which participants repeatedly choose among airlines across routes and observe noisy binary outcomes. Reduced-form evidence shows that participants improve not only within routes, but also across routes: they choose better airlines earlier in later routes and reduce pseudo-regret. To identify the mechanism behind this transfer, we compare human choices to a no-transfer benchmark and a fully integrated Bayesian meta-learning benchmark. In particular, we introduce a class of boundedly rational meta dynamic programming policies, BRMDP(D), that approximate full integration using a limited number of hyper-posterior draws, denoted by D. Trial-by-trial likelihood comparisons show that low-D boundedly rational meta-learning, especially BRMDP(1), fits participant behavior better than both no transfer and fully integrated Bayesian transfer. Consumers, therefore, transfer brand-level regularities across contexts, but through coarse representations of prior uncertainty. The findings imply that models of consumer learning should allow for approximate cross-context transfer, and that managerial counterfactuals based on either no-transfer or fully integrated learning can be misleading. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.16532 |
| By: | Pierre Boutros (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (UMR 7321), France); Michele Pezzoni (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (UMR 7321), France and Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques, HCERES, France); Lionel Nesta (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG (UMR 7321), France, OFCE, Sciences Po, France, and SKEMA Business School, France); Sonia Paty (Université Lumière Lyon 2, CNRS, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, emlyon business school, GATE (UMR 5824), Lyon, France) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the factors predicting the destination choice of mobile researchers. To do so, we use a unique dataset on researchers’ mobility between labs within the largest French public research organization from 2012 to 2022. We find that relational links, namely citation and co-authorship links between mobile researchers and destination lab members, are among the strongest predictors of researchers’ destination choices. Specifically, a citation link prior to mobility between a researcher and a lab is associated with a 3.7 percentage-point higher probability that the researcher chooses that lab as a destination, while a co-authorship link is associated with a 9.8 percentage-point higher probability. We argue that citation and co-authorship links are highly relevant because they serve as information channels to help address substantial information asymmetry between researchers and potential destination labs before mobility. We further find that citation links are better predictors of destination choice when the cognitive distance between the researcher and the lab is high, whereas co-authorship plays a stronger role when the cognitive distance is low. Finally, we find that other lab characteristics, such as the size, productivity, and funding availability, are less relevant to the destination choice. |
| Keywords: | Mobile researchers; Internal labor markets; Information asymmetry; Destination choice |
| JEL: | D83 J61 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2605 |
| By: | Yoontae Hwang |
| Abstract: | Institutional crossing platforms face a hidden-information problem: investors value trades as portfolios, but liquidity discovery is typically organized around individual securities. We model portfolio crossing as limited-communication preference elicitation over signed portfolio trades. The platform first uses price-directed demand queries to search the portfolio space and then verifies selected packages through value queries; an incumbent verification query records the demand-discovered allocation before further exploration. Final allocations are chosen from elicited reports, so the learning model guides queries but does not determine welfare. The analysis shows why search and verification are complementary. Demand queries locate high-value regions of a nonseparable portfolio space, but they provide only conservative welfare evidence unless selected packages are verified. Value queries provide exact welfare comparisons, but they are ineffective when applied to poorly targeted packages. Market-calibrated experiments using equity panels from the United States, Korea, Japan, and Germany show that demand-only and value-only designs recover only about half of full-information welfare under a limited query budget, whereas the hybrid procedure recovers 88\% and approaches 95\% as communication expands. We then compare exact security-level packages with factor-completed basket packages within the same allocation rule. Security-level packages are the unadjusted-efficiency mode when exact-securities disclosure is inexpensive. Factor-completed baskets become preferable when pretrade message informativeness is costly. The results characterize portfolio crossing as a selective verification problem and identify disclosure-sensitive package representation as a core design choice for hidden liquidity platforms. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.21409 |