Society's Preferences Research Articles

Analyzing Consumer Preferences in Selecting Halal Tourism Destination

Purpose: This paper examines consumer behavior, specifically the Indonesian society's preference for making halal tourism in the Riau region a tourism destination.Design/Method/Approach: The methodology applied in this research is quantitative with the SEM-PLS approach. Sampling was done using purposive sampling method. The number of respondents involved was 256 people with an age range of 16 to 55 years old. This study adopts variables based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, which identifies three exogenous latent variables (ɛ), namely Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control. Meanwhile, the endogenous latent variable (η) in this research is the Preference for Halal Tourism.Findings: The results of this study revealed that the perceived behavioral control variable has the largest, positive, and significant influence.Originality/Values: The implications of this research can assist in the development of the halal tourism industry in Indonesia, particularly in the Riau region. Industry players and stakeholders can take steps and policies to enhance aspects such as subjective norms and perceived behavioral control to meet tourists' preferences. Academics can also contribute to advancing digital literacy, research, and innovation in the halal industry, thereby making a significant contribution to the dynamic and innovative digital ecosystem within the halal value chain.

Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives under the Lens of Pairwise Distortion

We give a quantitative analysis of the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) axiom. IIA says that the society's preference between x and y should depend only on individual preferences between x and y: we show that, in several contexts, if the individuals express their preferences about additional (``irrelevant'') alternatives, this information helps to estimate better which of x and y has higher social welfare. Our contribution is threefold: (1) we provide a new tool to measure the impact of IIA on social welfare (pairwise distortion), based on the well-established notion of voting distortion, (2) we study the average impact of IIA in both general and metric settings, with experiments on synthetic and real data and (3) we study the worst-case impact of IIA in the 1D-Euclidean metric space.

Measures to Create an Eco-friendly Business Management Environment through Greenwashing Case analysis

As environmental problems such as climate and resource depletion are seriously occurring worldwide, the climate crisis and environmental problems are drawing attention throughout society. Reflecting this reality, an increasing number of ESG management companies are promoting environmentally friendly products and conducting eco-friendly marketing to secure corporate competitiveness. Unfortunately, however, greenwashing marketing by companies that exploit society's preference for eco-friendly companies is also rapidly increasing. Greenwashing refers to camouflage environmentalism that is not actually environmentally friendly but appears to be environmentally friendly. Through this review, we will find out the beginning and meaning of greenwashing and try to explain the seriousness of greenwashing through cases of greenwashing that occurred in the aspects of the country, companies, and consumers. The trend of global regulation on greenwashing was examined, and through this, policy measures to suppress greenwashing were presented.

Factors Affecting Long-Term Care Preferences in Turkey.

This study aimed to identify the long-term care preferences and the factors affecting theses preferences in Turkish society, where long-term care may soon become an important issue. We applied data from the Family Structure Survey of Turkey conducted in 2016. Using data from 35,475 individuals, we performed descriptive analysis and logistic regressions to determine the preferences and determinants of individuals based on the Andersen Behavior Model. Informal care was the main preference of individuals living in Turkey (37%). Men, individuals living in an extended family, and the young mostly favored informal care, while women, well-educated individuals, and urban individuals preferred institutional or formal care at home. Efforts should be made to raise individuals' awareness regarding existing long-term care services. These services should be strengthened in line with society's preferences, considering regional differences.

Time-Specific Differences in Stated Preferences for Health in the United States.

Changes over time in health state values from a societal perspective may be an important reason to consider updating societal value sets for preference-based measures of health. The aim was to examine whether stated health preferences are different between 2002 and 2017, controlling for demographic changes in the United States. Data from 2002 and 2017 US EQ-5D-3L valuation studies were combined. The primary analysis compared valuations of better-than-dead (BTD) states only, as both studies used the same time trade-off (TTO) method for these states. For worse-than-dead (WTD) states, the 2017 study used the lead-time TTO and the 2002 study used the conventional TTO, which necessitated transformation. Regression models were fitted to BTD values to estimate time-specific differences, adjusting for respondent characteristics. Secondary analyses examined models that fitted WTD values (using linear and nonlinear transformations of the 2002 data) and all values. The adjusted BTD-only model showed mean values were higher for 2017 compared with 2002 (βY2017=0.05, P<0.001). WTD-only models showed negative changes over time but that were dependent on the transformation method (linear βY2017=-0.72; nonlinear βY2017=-0.35; both P<0.001). Using all values, 2017 mean valuations were lower using a linear transformation (βY2017=-0.11; P<0.001) but did not differ with the nonlinear transformation. Individuals in 2017 are generally less willing to trade quantity for quality of life compared with 2002. This study provides evidence of time-specific differences in a society's preferences, suggesting that the era in which values were elicited may be an important reason to consider updating societal value sets.

Alternative Types of Ambiguity and their Effects on Climate Change Regulation.

This paper focuses on different types of ambiguity that affect climate change regulation. In particular, we analyze the effects of the interaction among three types of agents, namely, the decision-maker (DM), the climate change experts, and the society, on the probabilistic properties of green-house gas (GHG) emissions and the formation of environmental policy. These effects are analyzed under two types of ambiguity: "deferential ambiguity" and "preferential ambiguity". Deferential ambiguity refers to the uncertainty that the experts face concerning whose forecast (scenario) the DM will defer to. Preferential ambiguity stems from the potential inability of the DM to correctly discern the society's preferences about the desired change of GHG emissions. This paper shows that the existence of deferential and preferential ambiguities have significant effects on GHG emissions regulation.

Belief-averaging and relative utilitarianism

We consider social welfare functions when the preferences of individual agents and society maximize subjective expected utility in the tradition of Savage. A system of axioms is introduced whose unique solution is the social welfare function that averages the agents' beliefs and sums up their utility functions, normalized to have the same range. The first distinguishing axiom requires positive association of society's preferences with the agents' preferences for acts about which beliefs agree. The second is a weakening of Arrow's independence of irrelevant alternatives that only applies to non-redundant acts.

Smooth aggregation of Bayesian experts

I study the ex-ante aggregation of preferences of Bayesian agents in a purely subjective framework. I relax the assumption of a Bayesian social preference while keeping the Pareto condition. Under a simple axiom that relates society's preference to those of the agents, I obtain an additively separable representation of society's preference. Adding an ambiguity aversion axiom I obtain a representation that resembles the Smooth Ambiguity Criterion of Klibanoff et al. (2005). I then briefly consider applications of this framework to inequality and treatment choice under ambiguity.

Effects of financial instability on subjective well-being: a preference-based approach

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the link between banking crises and the subjective well-being of individuals. In addition, the authors examine the transmission of crises from the banking sector to well-being and show that negative financial shocks have significant adverse effects.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ agent-based modeling to test for the direct and indirect welfare effects of banking crises. The model includes a support vector machine (SVM) optimized subjective well-being function. The existing literature suggests that this is influenced by both the negative psychological effects of recessions and the adverse economic effects of income loss and increased unemployment.FindingsThe authors show that the different choices of policy response to a banking crisis carry different opportunity costs in terms of welfare and that societal preferences should be taken into account. The authors demonstrate that these effects influence different population classes in an asymmetric manner. Finally, the results demonstrate that the welfare loss of a bank failure is much higher than the cost of a bailout.Practical implicationsThe authors are able to propose to the authorities the best policy mix in order to handle banking crises in the most adequate manner, according to society's preferences between financial stability and public goods.Social implicationsThe findings extend the existing literature on subjective well-being, by quantifying the welfare cost of banking crises and showing that authorities should reconsider bank bailouts as a policy solution to bank distress.Originality/valueThe originality of this article lies in the use of an agent-based model to model the relationship between societal well-being and financial stability. Also, the authors extend existing agent-based methodologies to include machine learning optimization techniques.

Society's preferences when ecological values and health risks are at stake: An application to the population control of a flagship ungulate (Iberian ibex) in Sierra de Guadarrama national park, Spain

Conflicts derived from the proactive management of ecosystems and wildlife populations abound in national parks, which can prevent the control of some animal populations, consequently causing negative effects to the ecological values and creating health risks for the ecosystems. This work quantifies a conflict related to population control of the Iberian ibex in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park in Spain where ecological values and health risks are at stake. A discrete choice experiment was conducted of three population samples: 430 on-site visitors, 210 off-site visitors and 210 non-visitors, and two levels of status quo information were considered. The results show that not conducting any ibex management program in the park causes a loss of social well-being and that the design of the management program is shown to be relevant for obtaining greater or lesser acceptance by the surveyed population. In general, better ecological and health levels, as well as avoiding having to kill animals in the park, increase a program's acceptance. Management measures are also shown to take on greater importance to the extent that the results in the health and ecological indicators are worse. Finally, in aggregate terms, additional information about the status quo did not generate major differences in the estimates of a change of well-being. • Visitors and residents of the area state that the ibex must be managed in the park. • No ibex management produces a loss of well-being higher than the park's annual budget. • If the ibex management plan is not successful, how it is done becomes more important. • Live capture and culling are accepted if the results of the program are effective. • The definition of the status quo has no major effects on preferences.

Integrating Water Management Instruments to Reconcile a Hydro‐Economic Water Allocation Strategy With Other Water Preferences

AbstractIncreasing scarcity and pollution has called for changes in water policies, which should reflect society's preferences toward water use, development, and the environment. Water management is still limited in incorporating changing policies and in deriving directives to implement water instruments under long‐term planning. Some examples are water charges that do not reflect watershed externalities and water permits lacking future vision of allocation. Hydro‐economic modeling has explored trade‐offs of water allocation and improved water operations but still does not address instruments' integration. This paper proposes a modeling approach that identifies how to apply water management instruments integrated with each other to deliver a water allocation strategy reconciled with economic development projections and changing water use preferences. This improves our understanding on adjusting the implementation of water management instruments considering future outcomes and trade‐offs. The methodology combines discrete dynamic programming to determine increments in water permits, multiobjective linear programming to generate a Pareto set to model users' water preferences, and nonlinear programming to allocate water permits over different river reaches subject to water quality targets. The reconciliation allowed to identify sustainable water allocation strategies supported by a watershed, and instruments' integration to make it feasible. Strategies imposing limited water permits to economic users and watershed regions indicated where (and when) water conservation programs should be applied, along with quantitative targets (how much). The economic trade‐offs identified reference values for economic instruments to compensate the externalities. Finally, less strict water quality targets did not result in higher economic returns.

The logic of the post-Fukushima nuclear safety regulation: Residual risk and ‘practical elimination’

The fundamental objective of nuclear safety regulation is to ensure that nuclear facilities are operated in an acceptably safe way. The acceptable level of nuclear safety depends on the culture and traditions of their particular countries. This paper examines why nuclear risk has been selected as the target of avoidance in some countries and how nuclear safety regulation should address the concerns about residual risk. Based on the society's preference toward public risk equity rather than catastrophe risk aversion, the paper presents that the concept of practical elimination can address the residual risk problem. Two proposals are suggested for the logic of post-Fukushima nuclear safety regulation. First, rational decision-making scheme must expand to include the society's preference. If public risk equity is preferred, the practical elimination is realized by the finite level of low probability. Second, the dynamic search for continuous safety improvements is essential for ensuring that the residual risk is under control.

Quantifying Impacts of Macroeconomic and Non‐economic Factors on Public Health Expenditure: A Structural Time Series Model

AbstractDespite technological progress and society's changing lifestyles, preferences and attitudes towards public healthcare, little is known about the impact of these non‐economic factors (NEFs) on public health expenditure because existing studies have focused mainly on macroeconomic factors. This paper employs a structural time series model (STSM) to re‐examine and quantify the contributions of the key underlying drivers of public health expenditure while accounting for technological progress and other NEFs that have hitherto been ignored. The STSM captures the impact of NEFs via a stochastic trend component. The results of our application for Nigeria using data (1971–2013) sourced from the World Bank and Central Bank of Nigeria are robust to a battery of unit‐root and cointegration tests. We found that the key macroeconomic factors — economic output, current account and fiscal balance, official development assistance, oil revenue as well as urbanization and crude birth rate — are important drivers of public health expenditure. Technological progress and other NEFs have a non‐linear significant impact that varies with time and remains the largest contributor to annual change in public health expenditure. Policy implications from our findings are noted. Specifically, understanding and stabilizing both the macroeconomic and non‐economic factors are crucial to improve public health expenditure.

A Behavioural Theory of Allocation in the Dictator Game

This article attempts to explain the behaviour observed in the dictator game without explicitly assuming a utility function. Alternatively, I consider the repre- sentative behaviour of a society composed of heterogeneous individuals in terms of altruism and self-interest. Based on these two principles, I present an allocation that aggregates the society's preferences. The result depends crucially on the value of the resource under dispute for the dictator. Even if the value of the resource is extremely important for the dictator, the dictator cannot justify a share of the resource larger than 3/4 of the total. An allocation proposing more than this share of the resource cannot reach social consensus. On the other extreme, if the value of the resource is sufficiently unimportant for the society, an equal split of the resource emerges in the limit.

Distributive Politics with Other-Regarding Preferences

This paper analyzes a non-smooth model of probabilistic voting with two parties and a broad family of other-regarding behavior, including fairness and quasi-maximin preferences, income-dependent altruism, and inequity aversion. The paper provides conditions for equilibrium existence and uniqueness. It also characterizes the Nash equilibrium in pure strategies when parties hold either symmetric payoffs, or minor forms of asymmetries. The characterization shows that the two parties converge to an equilibrium policy that maximizes a mixture of a ``self-regarding utilitarian'' social welfare function and an aggregate of society's other-regarding preferences. These results are shown to be applicable to other non-smooth frameworks, such as probabilistic voting with loss averse voters. The characterization also shows that the direction and the size of the inefficiencies emerging from electoral competition depend in a subtle way on the nature of the other-regarding preferences (and resp., loss aversion)

Changing social preferences and optimal redistributive taxation

We examine a dynamic model of optimal nonlinear taxation of labor income and savings, in which there are two political parties: left-wing and right-wing. The parties differ only in their redistributive preferences, with the left-wing party having a stronger preference for redistribution. Our analysis explicitly considers the possibility that society's preference for redistribution may change, as reflected in its future voting behavior. The incumbent government respects the possibility that society's preference may change, and sets taxes to maximize expected social welfare. Our main result is that an incumbent left-wing (resp. right-wing) government will implement a regressive (resp. progressive) savings tax policy. The incumbent government implements this policy not out of self interest, but to accommodate the redistributive goals of the opposing party.

Evidence of variable discount rates and non-standard discounting in mortality risk valuation

Time discounting is central to the valuation of future health and mortality risks in public sector allocative decision-making, particularly for environmental policies with delayed health impacts. Using a Risk-Risk trade-off survey, we elicit discount rates for fatality risks and establish discounting functional forms on both a sample and an individual level. We find wide variation in implicit discount rates for fatality risk between individuals, as well as between-individual heterogeneity in discounting functional forms. In aggregate, the sample is best characterised by subadditive discounting. Our work has implications for the academic investigation of intertemporal choice involving mortality risks, and potentially for the evaluation of policy options with delayed mortality risk outcomes. A thought experiment cautions against the standard practice of assuming that exponential discounting characterises society's time preferences.

New Internet search volume-based weighting method for integrating various environmental impacts

Weighting is one of the steps in life cycle impact assessment that integrates various characterized environmental impacts as a single index. Weighting factors should be based on the society's preferences. However, most previous studies consider only the opinion of some people. Thus, this research proposes a new weighting method that determines the weighting factors of environmental impact categories by considering public opinion on environmental impacts using the Internet search volumes for relevant terms. To validate the new weighting method, the weighting factors for six environmental impacts calculated by the new weighting method were compared with the existing weighting factors. The resulting Pearson's correlation coefficient between the new and existing weighting factors was from 0.8743 to 0.9889. It turned out that the new weighting method presents reasonable weighting factors. It also requires less time and lower cost compared to existing methods and likewise meets the main requirements of weighting methods such as simplicity, transparency, and reproducibility. The new weighting method is expected to be a good alternative for determining the weighting factor.

Land use efficiency: anticipating future demand for land-sector greenhouse gas emissions abatement and managing trade-offs with agriculture, water, and biodiversity.

Competition for land is increasing, and policy needs to ensure the efficient supply of multiple ecosystem services from land systems. We modelled the spatially explicit potential future supply of ecosystem services in Australia's intensive agricultural land in response to carbon markets under four global outlooks from 2013 to 2050. We assessed the productive efficiency of greenhouse gas emissions abatement, agricultural production, water resources, and biodiversity services and compared these to production possibility frontiers (PPFs). While interacting commodity markets and carbon markets produced efficient outcomes for agricultural production and emissions abatement, more efficient outcomes were possible for water resources and biodiversity services due to weak price signals. However, when only two objectives were considered as per typical efficiency assessments, efficiency improvements involved significant unintended trade-offs for the other objectives and incurred substantial opportunity costs. Considering multiple objectives simultaneously enabled the identification of land use arrangements that were efficient over multiple ecosystem services. Efficient land use arrangements could be selected that meet society's preferences for ecosystem service provision from land by adjusting the metric used to combine multiple services. To effectively manage competition for land via land use efficiency, market incentives are needed that effectively price multiple ecosystem services.

Flexibility vs. protection from an unrepresentative legislative majority

We derive the equilibrium institutional design of representative democracy by citizens who first vote on the supermajority required for a new policy to be adopted, and then delegate decision making to a legislature that selects policy given that institutional constraint. A legislature that can freely tailor policy to reflect society's current preferences is good. However, the views of the median legislator or agenda setter may differ from the median citizen's, and an unchecked legislature can implement bad policy. We characterize how the primitives describing the preferences of actors and the status quo policy affect the equilibrium degree of legislative flexibility.