Nova SBE Working Papers

Crowdfunding vs. Taxes: Does the payment vehicle influence WTP for Ecosystem Services protection?

Author: Maria Antonieta Cunha e Sá et al.
Date: 2023
Number of pages: 28

The effect of the payment vehicle (PV) on economic valuation estimates has been addressed since the early literature on stated preferences studies. Particularly, some studies have focused on willingness to pay (WTP) sensitivity to mandatory/collective vs. voluntary/individual PVs, by comparing tax increases or redistribution based on specific taxes with donation-like contributions. These two payment schemes may induce different types of strategic behavior and eventually free riding by the economic agents involved. We conducted a choice experiment through a face-to-face survey held in 2020 for a representative sample of the Portuguese population. We investigate the national population’s WTP to invest in oil spills’ prevention along the coastline of mainland Portugal to ensure the provision of four marine and coastal ecosystem services (MCES): (1) biodiversity conservation, (2) beach use, (3) coastal protection and (4) surf. We used a split-sample design to test for differences between the two PVs considered, a mandatory income tax and a voluntary contribution collected through a crowdfunding campaign. We estimate a mixed logit model (MXL) in WTP-space. Furthermore, we control for several sociodemographic characteristics to capture the influence of respondents’ heterogeneity on the elicited WTP, and to check the robustness of our results. We find that mean WTP estimates are positive and significant for all ES except for surf. Biodiversity conservation has the highest WTP estimate. The results obtained suggest that the lack of trust in institutions, fairness concerns and disbelief in policy consequentiality seem to be intrinsic to the Portuguese population, influencing WTP regardless of the PV. However, when comparing an extra income tax with a crowdfunding campaign, respondents have a lower preference for the status quo in this latter case. Therefore, our results highlight the importance of better understanding the role that the payment vehicle may play in funding ecosystem services’ conservation. This is important since how populations respond to incentives for sustainability purposes is crucial to ensure that the targets are met in a more efficient (or cost-effective) and equitable way.

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Making their own weather? Estimating employer labour-market power and its wage effects

Author: Pedro S. Martins, António P. Melo
Date: 2023
Number of pages: 40

The subdued wage growth observed in many countries has spurred interest in monopsony views of regional labour markets. This study measures the extent and robustness of employer power and its wage implications exploiting comprehensive matched employer-employee data. We find average (employment-weighted) Herfindhal indices of 800 to 1,100, stable over the 1986-2019 period covered, and that typically less than 9% of workers are exposed to concentration levels thought to raise market power concerns. When controlling for both worker and firm heterogeneity and instrumenting for concentration, we find that wages are negatively affected by employer concentration, with elasticities of around -1.4%. We also find that several methodological choices can change significantly both the measurement of concentration and its wage effects.

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The economic value of land-based ecosystem services in Portugal: a spatially explicit approach

Author: João Seixo, Carina Vieira da Silva, Filipe S. Campos, Pedro Cabral, Luis Catela-Nunes, Antonieta Cunha e Sá
Date: 2023
Number of pages: 47

This study estimates the economic value of seven land based ecosystem services for mainland Portugal in 2018. The estimated services are Climate Regulation, Drought Regulation, Erosion Prevention, using the market price methodology, and Food Supply, Pollination, Recreation and Water Purification using a meta-analytic benefit transfer function. By estimating a unique meta-analytic benefit transfer function for each service, the commodity consistency condition is addressed. Different welfare measures were not pooled together and methodological variables are not included in the vector of explanatory variables. The results are spatially explicit at the hectare level providing the benchmark to which the consequences of land-use changes to the value of ecosystem services and, therefore, to the welfare of local populations can be adequately assessed.

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Wage cyclicality and labour market institutions

Author: João Pereira, Raul Ramos, Pedro S, Martins
Date: 2024
Number of pages: 67

Do labour institutions influence how wages respond to the business cycle? Such responsiveness can then shape several economic outcomes, including unemployment. In this paper, we examine the role of two key labour market institutions – collective bargaining and temporary contracts – upon wage cyclicality. Our evidence is drawn from rich, 2002-2020 matched data from Portugal. We find that workers not covered by collective agreements exhibit much higher wage cyclicality, especially new hires, compared to covered workers. In contrast, workers under temporary contracts do not exhibit sizable differences in cyclicality compared to counterparts under permanent (open-ended) contracts. Our findings highlight a novel angle through which labour institutions influence the labour market and the economy.

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What is (behind) the gender gap in sickness benefits? Evidence from administrative data

Author: Judiete Gonçalves, João Rocha-Gomes, Mário Amorim-Lopes, Pedro S. Martins
Date: August 2024
Number of pages: 29

Women appear to take sick leave at a higher rate and for longer periods than men. However, the reasons for these differences are poorly understood. This study starts by outlining several channels (biological, psychological, socio-economic, and occupational) that may drive this gender gap. We then analyse rich individual longitudinal administrative data on employment and sickness benefits. We consider the case of Portugal, where sickness benefits are relatively generous, in contrast to other potentially related social support (such as childcare). We find that women’s adjusted monthly odds of receiving sickness benefits are 1.66 times those of men. This ratio falls to 1.37 when considering only hospitalisation-initiated sickness benefits, which may be driven exclusively by health factors. Overall, our results suggest that biological factors, as well as work-related hazards and stressors, play a large role in the gender gap in sickness benefits; yet behavioural and socioeconomic factors are non-negligible. For example, more women may use sickness benefits to accommodate caregiving responsibilities, and more men may forgo statutory sick leave to provide for their family. Our findings underscore the importance of more evidence for the enhancement of health and equity at work. Improved social and workplace policies to mitigate the double burden of work and family responsibilities, laying mostly on (poorer) women, may be needed, also to increase fair use of sickness benefits.

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What matters for the decision to study abroad? A lab-in-the-field experiment in Cape Verde

Author: Cátia Batista, David M. Costa, Pedro Freitas, Gonçalo Lima, Ana V. Reis
Date: June 2024
Number of pages: 35

Study abroad migration is the fastest growing international migration flow. However, the college completion rates of students from low-income countries are often modest in OECD countries, raising the hypothesis that these migrants are poorly informed about the costs and benefits of their decision. Our work tests this hypothesis by running a lab-in-the-field experiment where graduating high school students in Cape Verde are faced with incentivized decisions to apply for college studies abroad. Our results show that potential migrants react strongly to information about the availability of financial support and about college completion rates. Since subjects’ prior beliefs on availability of financial support are overestimated, it is likely that study migrants need to shift their time from study to work after uninformed migration, which likely harms their scholar performance. Policies that inform potential migrants of actual study funding possibilities should decrease study migration flows but are likely to improve successful graduation.

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