Will Contextual Factors and Providing the Maximum Price Information Affect People’s Actual Willingness-to-pay in BDM Auctions? Evidence from Three Asian Countries

The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of maximum price information and contextual factors on people’s bidding behaviors in a controlled Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) experimental auctions. 354 respondents from three Asian countries (China, Cambodia and the Philippines) participated in this study. In each country, both households with piped water connection and households without piped water connection were investigated. The sample in each country was then randomly assigned to two groups: one group was provided with a maximum price of a water filter and the other group was not provided with the maximum price information. The results show that the treatment group with maximum price information had a higher actual willingness-to-pay than the control group without maximum price information, but they were not significantly different. Our results also indicate that contextual and socioeconomic factors did play a role in participants’ bid results for the water filter.     

Can sediment supply variations create sequences? Insights from stratigraphic forward modelling

Classic sequence stratigraphy suggests depositional sequences can form due to changes in accommodation and due to changes in sediment supply. Accommodation‐dominated sequences are problematic to define rigorously, but are commonly interpreted from outcrop and subsurface data. In contrast, supply‐dominated sequences are much less commonly identified. We employ numerical stratigraphic forward modelling to compare stratal geometries forced by cyclic changes in relative sea level with stratal geometries forced by sediment discharge and water discharge changes. Our quantitative results suggest that both relative sea‐level oscillations and variations in sediment/water discharge ratio are able to form sequence‐bounding unconformities independently, confirming previous qualitative sequences definitions. In some of the experiments, the two types of sequence share several characteristics, such as an absence of coastal‐plain topset deposits and stratal offlap, something typically interpreted as the result of falling relative sea level. However, the stratal geometries differ when variations in amplitude and frequency of relative sea‐level change, sediment/water discharge ratio, transport diffusion coefficient and initial bathymetry are applied. We propose that the supply‐dominated sequences could be recognised in outcrop or in the subsurface if the observations of stratal offlap and the absence of coastal‐plain topset can be made without any strong evidence of relative sea‐level fall (e.g. descending shoreline trajectory). These quantitative results suggest that both supply‐dominated and accommodation‐dominated sequences are likely to occur in the ancient record, as a consequence of multiple, possibly complex, controls.     

Comparative study on CO_2 emissions from different types of alpine meadows during grass exuberance period

1IntroductionTherisingatmosphericgreenhousegaseswerebelievedtobetheprimarycauseofglobalclimatechange(Tettetal.,1999;Crowley,2000).Amongthegreenhousegases,theconcentrationofatmosphericcarbondioxidehasincreasedfrom280ppmsincepre-industrialtimestocurrent355ppm,whichaccountedfor50%ofthetotalgreenhouseeffect(Nefteletal.,1985;Friedlietal.,1986;Rodhe,1990;Fanetal.,1998).ElevatedCO2hasamarkedeffectonterrestrialecosystemprocesses(Melilloetal.,1996).TheQinghai-TibetPlateau,thelargestgeomorphologica…