This paper reports a study regarding households’ willingness to pay for private sector solid waste management services. The data originated from a contingent valuation survey conducted in 224 households in Ilorin in southwest Nigeria and was analysed using tobit and censored least absolute deviations models. The use of a robust and consistent estimator to model zero willingness to pay responses...

In this paper, we use a semi-parametric two-stage model to examine the effect of bankspecific, industry-specific and macroeconomic determinants of bank efficiency. This method, proposed by Simar and Wilson (2007), relaxes several deficiencies of previous two-stage analyses, which regress non-parametric estimates of bank efficiency on exogenous determinants. In particular, we propose a bootstrap...

In the European Union, mitigation measures to abate diffuse pollution from agricultural land are implemented under the direction of the EU Nitrates and Water Framework Directives. As these measures are implemented in national policies, a review process will look at the efficacy of the measures with a view to recommending further measures as necessary. This study examines the willingness of farm...

In this article we consider the estimation of two seemingly unrelated Tobit regressions in which the dependent variables are truncated normal. The model is useful, since it can be viewed as the reduced form of a simultaneous-equations Tobit model. The proposed estimation method and algorithm are interesting in themselves for the following reasons. In the estimation of a simultaneous equations m...

This paper investigates households’ portfolio choice behavior using a structural microeconometric approach obtained by extending the analysis in Fougère, Gouriéroux, Tiomo and Trognon (1997). I assume that households have mean variance expected utility and are forbidden to take short positions in the risky assets. If there are only two such assets, it is possible to derive a closed form solutio...

BACKGROUND Evidence is lacking on whether health guidance for metabolic syndrome reduces health care expenditures. The author used propensity-score matching to evaluate the effects of health guidance on health care expenditure. METHODS Men who did and did not receive health guidance from a health insurance society (approximately 60 000 covered lives) were matched (n = 397 respectively) using ...