Information exchange in policy networks is usually attributed to preference similarity, influence reputation, social trust and institutional actor roles. We suggest that political opportunity structures and transaction costs play another crucial role and estimate a rich statistical network model on tie formation in the German toxic chemicals policy domain. The results indicate that the effect o...

According to its advocates, an ecosystem-services-based approach to conservation will engender greater public support and produce more durable victories. Here, we identify three potential opportunity costs associated with such an approach: (1) diminished attention to protecting rare, localized species (the night parrot effect); (2) diminished attention to protecting wild, remote areas (the prox...

Experimental methods have been used to examine individual choices for consistency with expected utility theory (EUT). However, previous designs have not accounted for an important free parameter in EUT, namely the risk attitude of the subject. Previous rejections of EUT may have been premature because plausible levels of risk aversion may result in low or zero opportunity costs of making decisi...

Technical and regulatory changes motivate the economics of the interconnections to be re-examined for the next-generation Internet. This paper presents a framework for the economics of market-based QoS interconnection networks. The economic model presented captures the characteristics of opportunity costs and demands and suggests strategies for QoS pricing and allocation. We use the statistical...

Informal care by adult children remains the most common source of caregiving for elderly parents in Japan, even after the introduction of long-term care insurance in 2000. We estimate how the potential supply of child caregivers affects the use of formal care of elderly parents, focusing on the differences across children. We find that the effects of children's presence vary substantially with ...

The REDD Programme is predicated on the assumption that developed countries will provide sufficient funds to offset opportunity costs associated with avoiding deforestation. The role of non-market values in indigenous land management may challenge the efficacy of compensation schemes targeted at meeting opportunity costs as calculated in traditional opportunity cost analysis (OCA). Furthermore ...

Studies investigating fertility decline in developing countries often adopt measures of determinants of fertility behavior developed based on observations from developed countries, without adapting them to the realities of the study setting. As a result, their findings are usually invalid, anomalous or statistically non-significant. This commentary draws on the research article by Moeeni and co...