This paper employs a choice experiment to obtain consumer preferences and willingness to pay for food product quality attributes currently not available in Sweden.

We find, using survey-experimental methods, that most individuals are concerned with both relative income and relative consumption of particular goods. The degree of concern varies in the expected direction depending on the properties of the good.

We investigate the effectiveness of different smoking policies on smokers’ expectations to quit smoking using a choice experiment on a sample of smokers identified within the World Health Organization (WHO) MONICA Project.

This paper presents an experimental study of two different pollution compliance games: collective vis-à-vis random fining as a means to regulate non-point pollution. Result suggests the importance of considering subject pool differences in the evaluation of environmental policies by means of experiments, particularly if those policies involve certain forms of management decisions.

This paper analyzes the welfare effects of improved health status through increased water quality using a choice experiment. The survey was administered to a random sample of households in metropolitan Cairo, Egypt.

The interest for wetlands is increasing, not only because of the possibility of a cost-efficient uptake of nutrients, but also because wetlands can be designed to provide other services. What values that are supplied depend largely on the design.

Social inequality aversion is measured through a veil-of-ignorance experiment with Indian students. The median relative risk aversion is found to be quite high, about 3, and independent caste.

Co-authors:

G. Gupta and O. Johansson-Stenman

The main objective of thus study is to contribute to the design of policies dealing with the problems of congestion and air pollution in the urban context of a typical developing country.

This thesis consists of five papers dealing with fairly heterogeneous issues, based on the problems or topics analyzed, but also based on the methodologies used to approach them. The overriding motives are the design of environmental policies in the context of a typical developing country (where Costa Rica is used as a representative of such countries), and the study and application of techniques that can provide the necessary information for policy-making.

Individuals' aversion to risk and inequality, and their concern for relative standing, are measured through experimental choices between hypothetical societies.

It is found that, on average, individuals are both fairly inequality-averse and have a strong concern for relative income. The results are used to illustrate welfare consequences based on a utilitarian SWF and a modified CRRA utility function. It is shown that the social marginal utility of income may then become negative, even at income levels that are far from extreme.