DSpace Repository :: Browsing by Author "Barrientos, Manuel"

Browsing by Author "Barrientos, Manuel"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

A comparison of mixed logit and latent class models to estimate market segments for seafood faced with ocean acidification
(2022) Campos-Requena, Nelyda; Fernández, Francisco; Vásquez-Lavín, Felipe; Barrientos, Manuel; Gelcich, Stefan; Ponce Oliva, Roberto
This study uses a choice experiment to characterize market segments (consumer preferences heterogeneity) based on three attributes of seafood (mussels) that are affected by ocean acidification: shell appearance, meat color, and nutritional composition. Using a sample of 1,257 individuals from two main cities in Chile, we estimate both the Mixed Logit model and the Latent Class model. We use the individual-specific posterior (ISP) parameters ’distribution to categorize consumers’ heterogeneity based on the signs and intensity (i.e., like or dislike dimension) of these ISPs. We compare the pattern of preferences and whether people are classified within the same preference pattern in both models. In general, we observed that the models identify a different number of segments with various patterns of preferences. Moreover, the models classify the same people into different groups. Since the segmentation is sensitive to the chosen model, we discuss strengths, inconsistencies, biases, and best practices regarding methodological approaches to establishing market segments in choice experiments and future ocean acidification conditions
Economic valuation of Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB):
(2024) Carias, José; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Barrientos, Manuel; Ponce, Roberto D.; Gelcich, Stefan
This paper presents a literature review on the economic valuation of Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) impacts, identifying methodological challenges, policy implications, and gaps. Unlike previous literature reviews, we are particularly interested in determining whether the economic valuations of HABs have included a policy analysis. Our paper provides a conceptual framework that allows us to evaluate whether applications of economic studies of HABs are consistent with a well-defined economic welfare analysis. It links methodologies and techniques with welfare measures, data types, and econometric methods. Based on this literature review, we present an example of economic valuation that closes the gap between policy analysis and valuation methodology. We use a stated preferences study to estimate a “seafood price premium” to create a fund to support monitoring systems and for damage compensation to producers in the presence of HABs. Results show that most economic studies on HAB valuation do not consider any cost-benefit analysis of a defined policy intervention. The predominant economic valuation methodology uses market information to estimate a proxy for welfare measure of the impact of HABs (loss revenue, sales, exports). Moreover, nonuse and indirect use values are ignored in the literature, while stated preference methodologies are underrepresented. Finally, results from 1293 surveys found that people are willing to pay an increase in the price of mussels to support a policy that informs on HAB. However, the lack of institutional trust affects the probability of paying negatively.
Embedding effect and the consequences of advanced disclosure: evidence from the valuation of cultural goods
(2020-06) Carrasco Garcés, Moisés; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Ponce Oliva, Roberto; Bustamante Oporto, Luis; Barrientos, Manuel; Cerda, Arcadio A.
This study revisits the embedding effect, a long-standing problem in the nonmarket valuation literature. The embedding effect was a popular research topic during the 1990s, especially following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. It has resurfaced after a special issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives in 2012 in which Jerry Hausmann asserts that among the three long-standing problems with contingent valuation, the embedding effect is the most challenging. In this study, we focus on how information disclosure regarding the nested structure of goods affects both the willingness to pay and the presence of the embedding effect. Our results suggest that the level of embedding can be reduced with a more complete description of the nested structure of the goods under valuation. Therefore, it is highly important for each valuation study to test whether sufficient information is provided on the goods’ nested structure to ensure that the relationships among the goods’ subsets are correctly understood by respondents. We show that by providing respondents with more high-quality information, it is possible to mitigate the embedding effect.
Estimating discount rates for environmental goods: Are People’s responses inadequate to frequency of payments?
(2021) Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Carrasco, Moisés; Barrientos, Manuel; Gelcich, Stefan; Ponce Oliva, Roberto
Most stated preference studies estimate discount rates using a split-sample approach. Each sample faces a different payment frequency (for instance, 1, 5, 10) together with a randomly assigned bid vector; both the frequency of payments and the bid are fixed for a specific individual. This paper evaluates whether allowing respondents to choose their preferred payment frequency affects the estimated discount rate. We use data from a contingent valuation survey of a network of marine reserves and estimate discount rates using both an exogenous and endogenous approach. The former calculates the mean of the willingness to pay (WTP) for each sample and then finds the discount rate that makes the present value of each payment frequency equivalent. The latter estimates theWTP and the discount rate jointly. Results show that allowing people to choose the payment schedule significantly reduces the implicit discount rate. We observed the highest reductions in discount rates when we used all the information available from the valuation questions to bound theWTP distribution. Our analysis suggests that the exogenous approach would not be recommended for testing the adequacy of people’s responses to the frequency of payments.
Estimating the implicit discount rate for new technology adoption of wood-burning stoves
(2021) Carrasco-Garcés, Moisés; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Ponce Oliva, Roberto; Díaz Pincheira, Francisco; Barrientos, Manuel
In the last decade, there have been several initiatives to incentivize Efficient Energy Technologies (EET) to reduce air pollution caused by wood-burning in developing countries. More efficient woodstoves can improve health, reduce family expenditures, CO2 emissions, and forest degradation. Despite these benefits, there is low level of adoption of EETs. This paper contributed to the literature in three ways. First, it estimates the implicit discount rate (IDR) used by individuals to decide whether to adopt EET using exponential and hyperbolic specifications. Second, it includes sociodemographic characteristics in the definition of the IDR. Third, it evaluates how the adoption curve changes by different policy designs. Since the interest rate is part of the policy design, comparing the interest rate and the IDR is relevant to increasing adoption. Our monthly estimated IDR is between 1.7% and 5.4% with a significant overlap with market interest rate. The IDR is affected by the perception of the future economic situation, trust in environmental authorities, happiness, and gender. We found that using an interest rate lower than the IDR increases the probability of adoption significantly. An understanding of the effects of copayments, payment frequencies, and difference between interest rates and IDR is needed to maximize adoption.
Exploring the impact of ocean acidification information on consumers’ preference for seafood
(2024) Barrientos, Manuel; Carrasco-Garcés, Moisés; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Ponce, Roberto D.; San Martín, Valeska A.; Gelcich, Stefan
We conducted a discrete choice experiment to explore whether providing information about a lesser-known issue related to climate change, ocean acidification (OA), affects consumers’ preferences for seafood products in a middle-income country in the southern hemisphere. Our objective was to determine whether OA information affects consumer preferences for seafood using stated preference (SP) techniques. Seafood attributes include shell size and appearance, meat color, texture, taste, nutritional composition, product assortments, and price. We applied a split-sample approach to test for information effects, with one sample receiving information about OA while the other did not. We analyze the differences between samples using visual instruments and statistical tests. The results demonstrate that although the statistical test does not identify a difference between models, we did find that OA information increases the precision of ’consumers’ responses. Moreover, using visual instruments, we found differences in specific parameters – not detected in the statistical analysis - which can lead to substantial differences in the willingness to pay for seafood attributes. The article is relevant as understanding these matters is essential when generating more effective communicational strategies regarding the impacts of global changes.
Firewood Certification Programs: Key Attributes and Policy Implications.
(2019) Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Barrientos, Manuel; Castillo, Alvaro; Herrera, Iván; Ponce Oliva, Roberto
Evidence from south-central Chile shows that the concentration limits for PM10 and PM2.5, defined by both the World Health Organization and national standards, are systematically exceeded, affecting approximately 10 million people. Among the sources of this pollution, firewood use accounts for the largest share. This study assesses whether consumers value environmental, social, and legal attributes associated with the firewood certification programs. We used a discrete choice model based on a sample of 500 households. According to our results, the price premium for certified firewood is about 10% in the most likely scenario, with those attributes closely related to private benefits having a higher value, compared to those of social benefits. We identify significant heterogeneity among respondents belonging to two different consumer classes: 1) those who are less price sensitive and are willing to pay for attributes related to certification; 2) those who are sensitive to prices and are not willing to pay for attributes related to certification. Since the second class includes about 46% of the sample, the implementation of certification programs could be jeopardized. Therefore, knowing this information helps us determine whether a certification system can foster the firewood industry transition to a more sustainable model.
Firms adaptation to climate change through product innovation
(2022) Ponce Oliva, Roberto; Huaman, Joana; Vásquez-Lavín, Felipe; Barrientos, Manuel; Stefan Gelcich, Stefan
Climate change will impose high costs on different societal actors, including firms and organizations, forcing them to adapt to this new situation. Although the relevance of implementing adaptation strategies is widely recognized, studies on firms' adaptation to climate change are still in their infancy, especially regarding small and medium enterprises. Following a multi-stage approach, we analyze how small and medium enterprises in the marine food industry could adapt to climate-induced ocean acidification through product innovation. First, we use a co-production process with the firms' representatives to gain insights into the industry's adaptation opportunities, in which product innovation arises as the preferred strategy. Second, using a Discrete Choice Experiment, we test if consumers value both the mussels' attributes likely affected by ocean acidification (sensory and nutritional) and the proposed new products developed to adapt to it. We also analyze preferences' heterogeneity through a latent class model. Our results show that consumers value the attributes potentially affected by ocean acidification. We found high heterogeneity in consumer preferences regarding product types, disentangled into two classes (non-innovative consumers and consumers willing to innovate). We suggest that the industry could base its adaptation strategy on two pillars: 1) maintain the traditional format, thus satisfying 21% of the market (non-innovative consumers); 2) direct the innovation efforts towards the canned format, thus satisfying those consumers willing to innovate (79% of the market). Although consumers willing to innovate are prone to try new formats, the preferred alternatives are not radical innovations.
Microplastics in seafood:
(2024) Barrientos, Manuel; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Ponce, Roberto D.; Nayga Jr, Rodolfo M.; Gelcich, Stefan
Microplastics, an emerging pollutant, have garnered widespread attention due to potential repercussions on human health and the environment. Given the critical role of seafood in food security, growing concerns about microplastics might be detrimental to meeting future global food demand. This study employed a discrete choice experiment to investigate Chilean consumers’ preferences for technology aimed at mitigating microplastic levels in mussels. Using a between-subjects design with information treatments, we examined the impact of informing consumers about potential human health and environmental effects linked to microplastics pollution on their valuation for the technology. We found that the information treatments increased consumers’ willingness to pay for mussels. Specifically, consumers were willing to pay a premium of around US$ 4 for 250 g of mussel meat with a 90 % depuration efficiency certification. The provision of health impact information increased the price premium by 56 %, while the provision of environmental information increased it by 21 %. Furthermore, combined health and environmental information significantly increased the probability of non-purchasing behavior by 22.8 % and the risk perception of microplastics for human health by 5.8 %. These results emphasized the critical role of information in shaping consumer preferences and provided evidence for validating investment in research and development related to microplastic pollution mitigation measures.
Out of sight, not out of mind:
(2024) Henríquez, Makarena; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Barrientos, Manuel; Ponce, Roberto D.; Lara, Antonio; Flores-Benner, Gabriela; Riquelme, Carlos
According to the latest global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services, nature and biodiversity have experienced a global decline, making the development of conservation policies urgent. Herein, we used a contingent valuation survey to estimate the economic value of a reintroduction program for the huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus), an endangered charismatic species in Chile. Our novel approach exploits changes in the access to the site to disentangle nonuse value from use value. We use parametric and nonparametric models to estimate the willingness to pay for the program. Our findings consistently indicate that the conservation of the huemul is valued more when tourist access is restricted, as opposed to allowing visitors access to reintroduction areas. We also analyze the sensitivity of this main finding to different cut-off points of a certainty scale, showing that the results are robust. We hypothesize that people are willing to pay a “premium” to keep the conservation site “out of sight” from tourist activities. This could also be related to the belief that a reintroduction program would be more effective if access was not allowed. A cost-benefit analysis using the most conservative assumptions suggests that social benefit significantly outperforms cost.
Understanding the role of personal experiences and contextual variables in shaping risk reduction preferences
(2023) Barrientos, Manuel; Vásquez Lavín, Felipe; Rosales, Constanza; Bratti , Luna
This article explores how preferences for risk reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic are influenced by personal experiences and contextual variables such as having a close friend or relative who has been infected by the virus (closeness), the severity of the illness (severity), people’s own perceptions of being in a risky group (risk group), change in employment status due to the pandemic (employment situation), and vaccination status (vaccination status and altruistic vaccination). We conducted a choice experiment (CE) in Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica. The attributes of the experiment were risk reduction, latency, and cost. Then, we estimated a mixed logit model to capture preference heterogeneity across the countries. The attributes presented in the CE were statistically significant, with the expected sign in each country. The variables closeness and employment situation presented homogeneous behavior in each country; however, severity, risk group, and vaccination status showed mixed results. We found that preferences were more heterogeneous for the attributes of the CE than for the personal experiences and contextual variables. Understanding the impact of these variables is essential for generating more effective risk reduction policies. For instance, methodologies such as the value of statistical life base their calculations on society’s valuation of risk reduction. We provide evidence that the preferences for risk reduction vary due to the everyday situations that individuals face in the context of the pandemic. The latter may cause distortions in the values used to evaluate policies aimed at mitigating the outbreak.

Browsing by Author "Barrientos, Manuel"

Results Per Page

Sort Options