This paper discusses the standard welfare economics assumption anthropocentric welfarism, i.e. that only human well-being counts intrinsically. New survey evidence from a representative sample in Sweden is presented, indicating that anthropocentrism is strongly rejected, on average. However,...

I show how the problems with zero and negative values in decomposition can in principle be resolved by avoiding ill-defined mathematical operations used to derive the decomposition formulae (division by zero and taking logarithms of zero and negative values). Referring to integral approximation,...

Welfare economics relies on consequentialism. Whether a public action is good or bad is then determined by the consequences for people, rather than for example by the extent to which it infringes on others’ rights. Yet, many philosophers have questioned this assumption. The present note...

Are fairness concerns of relevance to environmental economics and, if so, are they sufficiently structured to improve analysis in this field? On both of these questions, we answer in the affirmative, arguing that people’s fairness views are based on both general rules and the context, where...

Various decentralization experiments are currently underway in the Chinese forestry sector. However, a key question often ignored by researchers and policy makers is what farmers really want from reform. This paper addresses this question using a survey-based choice experiment. We investigated...

We investigate the importance of the social context for people’s voluntary contributions to a national park in Costa Rica, using a natural field experiment. Some subjects make actual contributions while others state their hypothetical contribution. Both the degree of anonymity and provided...

We investigate the role of anonymity, reciprocity, and conformity for voluntary contributions, based on a natural field experiment conducted at a national park in Costa Rica. Contributions made in public in front of the solicitor are 25% higher than contributions made in private. Giving subjects...

In this paper we use follow-up questions to investigate whether attributes have been ignored in a choice experiment on environmental goods. This information is subsequently used in the estimation of the model by restricting the individual parameters for the ignored attributes to zero. We then...

This paper analyses normative implications of relaxing the conventional welfare economics assumptions anthropocentrism and welfarism, i.e. that only human well-being counts intrinsically, combined with various types of non-selfish individual preferences. Social decision rules are derived for the...

I show how the problems with zero and negative values in decomposition can in principle be resolved by avoiding ill-defined mathematical operations used to derive the decomposition formulae (division by zero and taking logarithms of zero and negative values). Referring to integral approximation,...