Large parts of East German landscapes are formed by lignite mining activities. The mining pits destroy vast areas of the existing cultural landscapes. These areas have to be made re-accessible to society through extensive reclamation projects after mining has been finished. For an appraisal of...

Landslides are a severe problem during the rainy season in many mountainous regions in Asia where forests have been cut so that mountain slopes are destabilized. In this study we analyze the extent and causes of landslides in a mountainous area in Northern Vietnam as viewed from the perspective...

Environmental valuation studies aim at the assessment of the social benefits or the social costs caused by some change in environmental quality (in the broadest sense). The most popular field of application of environmental valuation studies is project appraisal where the benefits arising from...

In this paper we show how citizen expert groups can be used to improve the design of contingent valuation surveys. The concept of citizen expert groups combines the various advantages of focus groups and of participatory approaches like citizen juries and the market stall method. Using an...

Though contingent valuation is the dominant technique for the valuation of public projects, especially in the environmental sector, the high costs of contingent valuation surveys prevent the use of this method for the assessment of relatively small projects. The reason for this cost problem is...

The issues of privatization (and sometimes deregulation) have been reviewed in a large literature on the various aspects of privatization, that has emphasized the potential efficiency gains. Hence, the goal of this paper is twofold: First to provide some theoretical reasoning why privatization...