• Energy Research

The main objective of this paper is to measure how much home-site factors can help to explain the individual WTP for an environmental improvement in power generation in Galicia, Spain. The results show that home-site variables such as a dispersed population, local community income, population growth and coastal/inland emplacements have significant effects on the residents' WTP. Individual and home-site models are compared using goodness-of-fit measures, and implications for forestry resources management and energy planning are discussed. The results favor to take into account the home-site variables into the WTP function. Moreover, a different structure of preferences for coastal and inland inhabitants is identified. A cross-validity analysis shows that some home-site coefficients are common to both sub-samples, but the scale parameters are not homogenous. This analysis could be useful to inform and support the public energy policy when designing incentives that promote the electric use of biomass. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Based on a set of reference indicators, a tool was designed for the evaluation “ex post” of sustainability of units of managed natural forests in Costa Rica. This set was developed using a hierarchical structure of principles, criteria and indicators of sustainability. The resulting reference list consists of 5 principles, 12 criteria and 30 indicators, classified as essential by a group of experts in forest management in Costa Rica. The set of indicators allows studying the dimensions and attributes that delimit the sustainability of the ecosystems. The selection procedure and the likely contribution of this set to forest management addresses, firstly, the economic, social, ecosystemic and institutional conditions of Costa Rica. However, the set of indicators is useful for other regions of the world, previous adaptation of the threshold values to the local conditions of the ecosystem. Additionally, the ecosystemic dimension (productivity, stability, adaptability) is ratified as a condition of first order for the sustainability, but the experts reinforce the idea that the institutional dimension (equity and governance) is a challenge for the evaluation of sustainability.

Landowners' attitudes towards energy crops are a keystone for the fulfillment of the European Union objectives of energy production (electrical, thermal and biofuels) from biomass in the next years. Economic instruments play a fundamental role to increase the participation of the landowners in renewable energy schemes. A discrete choice experiment was conducted using a mail survey to 268 private forest landowners from the Andalusia region (southern Spain). The aim was to examine forest landowners' willingness to implement afforestation schemes considering short rotation plantations based on woody energy crops (eucalyptus, paulownia and poplar) and traditional tree species (holm oak and pine). Results show that afforestation with holm oak is the preferred alternative followed by woody energy crops. According to the experiment results, the participation of about half of the Andalusian forest owners in a woody energy crops scheme would imply a public expenditure in incentives for this land use change of 265 million of euros, i.e. an unrealistic figure given the current institutional framework for renewables in Europe. Finally, it is shown that compensations to forest landowners are affected by the payment timeframe and that the discount rate implicitly used by landowners exceeds the 4% rate commonly used in forest economics literature.

Understanding the complex process of climate change implies the knowledge of all possible determinants of CO2 emissions. This paper studies the influence of several institutional determinants on CO2 emissions, clarifying which variables are relevant to explain this influence. For this aim, Genetic Programming and Artificial Neural Networks are used to find an optimal functional relationship between the CO2 emissions and a set of historical, economic, geographical, religious, and social variables, which are considered as a good approximation to the institutional quality of a country. Besides this, the paper compares the results using these computational methods with that employing a more traditional parametric perspective: ordinary least squares regression (OLS). Following the empirical results of the cross-country application, this paper generates new evidence on the binomial institutions and CO2 emissions. Specifically, all methods conclude a significant influence of ethnolinguistic fractionalization (ETHF) on CO2 emissions. Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia | Ref. MTM2005-01274 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación | Ref. MTM2008-3219 Xunta de Galicia | Ref. PGIDIT07PXIB300191PR

This article analyzes the willingness to pay of Costa Rican consumers for three environmental certifications in the coffee market, namely, Carbon Neutral, Fairtrade, and ISO 14001. A face-to-face survey was applied to 1191 Costa Rican inhabitants. The results show that Costa Rican consumers are willing to pay price premiums around 30% for all the considered environmental certifications. In addition, a Cragg’s hurdle model shows that household income, the level of education, and environmental or community activism increase the likelihood of consumers paying price premiums for environmental certifications, while men are less likely to pay than women. It was also found that the size of the price premiums that respondents are willing to pay are positively related to income, gender (female), and education, and negatively related to age. Once the effect of socioeconomic variables has been controlled for, we conclude that consumers are more willing to pay for the CN certification than for the other two. The results can be useful for participants in the coffee value chain; coffee producers can use environmental certifications both to enhance their participation in green markets, particularly in developing countries, and to improve their environmental performance.

In this article, we analyze social preferences for a partial substitution programme of electricity generated by conventional energy sources, for energy generated from a local renewable energy source, such as forest biomass. This analysis sets arguments in favour of accelerating the introduction of this renewable technology in the Spanish Electricity System. Simultaneously, two methodological goals concerning the contingent valuation method are discussed. In the first one, we analyze if there are statistical differences in the willingness to pay (WTP) when a single- or a double-bounded format is employed to ask the valuation question. Results show that WTP estimates from single- and double-bounded significantly differ. In the second one, we analyze the effect of the periodicity of the payment vehicle on the estimates of welfare change. The timeframe specification of the payment vehicle has been scarcely studied, and this fact constitutes the main contribution of this paper to the specialized literature. Results show that periodicity influences upon the probability to favour the proposed change. The periodicity does not affect to the mean WTP obtained in the single-bounded format, but there are statistical differences in the double-bounded format. These results might be explained by the presence of yea saying and payment scale bias.