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The rapid rise of rental bikes and limited understanding of their impacts has fuelled public interest in how bike renting systems impact consumers. As the critical and most rapidly developed part of the bike renting system, the dockless bike renting system merits a study for its welfare analysis. In addition, the transmission of COVID-19 has greatly changed people’s behavior and the usage pattern of bike renting systems. This study aims to determine the consumer surplus created by dockless bike renting firms in Washington, D.C., during the normal year and how the COVID-19 pandemic and policy affect the demand of the bike renting system. This dissertation uses a discrete choice model to estimate demand and calculate the changes in consumer surplus for riders if there are no dockless bike renting systems in the market. What is more, a difference in difference model is used to explore the effect of COVID-19 shocks and restriction policy in Washington D.C. The results show that firstly, riders would walk additional 637 meters more to reduce the cost of 1 dollar of renting a bike. Secondly, price elasticity indicates riders for docking bike is less sensitive to price than other dockless device users. Thirdly, the upper bond of consumer surplus created by the dockless bike renting system is 0.897 dollars per trip or compensated 1.1 million dollars for all trips per month if all dockless devices are removed from the market. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic negatively influences the demand for docking bike riders. Lastly, policy restrictions might positively or negatively influence the demand for bike renting systems based on the docking stations’ location characteristics.

Abstract The economic value of birds in the United States and Canada has been measured using 27 stated preference surveys. Consumer Surplus per person, per day (CS_PPPD) ranges from a low of $0.29 (2020$) to a high of $824.53 over 442 observations, with a mean of $56.74. A fixed-effects regression analysis of consumer surplus shows that variation in CS_PPPD can be explained by a variety of method, resource, and context attributes. This provides economic value to the anthropocentric value of bird watching, wildlife viewing (where birds are included), and the potential for Benefit-Transfer to climate change policy using the models developed and values found in this meta-analysis.

A well-known result with important policy implications is that an output increase is a nec- essary condition for social welfare to increase with third-degree price discrimination. In this paper, we explore the robustness of this result to the introduction of an assumption that is dif- ferent than the conventional approach, namely preferences not being quasilinear. We show that in the presence of income differences among consumers, the aggregate utility of con- sumers may increase with price discrimination while total output remains constant. This result questions the general policy recommendation that third-degree price discrimination should be disapproved because it reduces welfare unless output increases. Our result highlights the crucial role of the assumption of quasilinear preferences in standard welfare calculations. In the presence of income differences, consumer surplus may be a biased welfare measure, thus potentially leading to incorrect conclusions when assessing the impact of specific policies.

This dissertation consists of three essays on Hedonic price method which is widely used in non-market good evaluation. The first chapter outlines three topics involved and briefly discusses the motivations and methods, as well we some conclusions in each of the following chapters. Chapter 2 uses a conventional first stage hedonic price method to estimate the effect of an aquatic invasive species (Eurasian watermilfoil) on lakefront property values at selected Vermont lakes. Results indicate that as the primary component of total aquatic macrophyte growth in a lake Eurasian watermilfoil significantly and substantially affects lakefront property values. As Eurasian watermilfoil infests a lake, adding to the total macrophyte growth, property values can diminish by

Using daily observations of ridership on the New York City subway system from March 12, 2002 through October 31, 2005, this paper studies the effects that changes in the national terror alert level as set by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has on consumer behavior in the subway system. Applied time-series intervention analysis shows that increasing the national terror alert level to high (color coded as orange) leads to a 4% decrease, both statistically and economically, in daily subway ridership in New York City. Furthermore, an increased national terror alert level decreases consumer surplus by as much as $1.80 million per day, approximately 3.3% of which is due to a decrease in subway ridership.

There is significant government expenditure, in the form of direct subsidies, on pharmaceutical products in New Zealand. An understanding of the effectiveness of this expenditure is important as all government expenditure has an opportunity cost. This study explores the determinants of demand for pharmaceuticals, estimates the consumers' responsiveness to price changes and estimates the consumer welfare effects from the presence of subsidies on asthma pharmaceuticals. This study also compares and contrasts the determinants of demand, and the responsiveness to price changes for high and low socio-economic consumers. The traditional consumer welfare effects for the market from the presence of the subsidy are also calculated in this study. Asthma pharmaceutical products were used as a case study for this evaluation. The welfare effects are evaluated within a static partial equilibrium framework, which requires the specification of both the demand and supply curves. The supply curve was assumed to be equal to the world price. Much of the data required for this study on consumption, asthma severity, income levels and other demographics was collected via a main survey. This survey elicited the data required to estimate the demand function. A regression analysis was employed to estimate the demand function using effective price as a proxy for price. A statistically significant relationship between effective price and quantity was not found. However, the effective price coefficient was used to estimate the elasticity of demand for asthma pharmaceuticals. It was found that the elasticity of demand for the low and high socio-economic clusters was -0.007 and -0.039, respectively. This result implies that both the high and low socio-economic cluster have a relatively inelastic demand curve (relatively unresponsive to price changes). It was also noted that the low socioeconomic cluster had a slightly less responsive demand curve to price than their higher socio-economic counterparts. This result was contrary to that hypothesised, however, a plausible explanation for this is that the low socio-economic cluster tends to have more severe asthma, and therefore may have less discretion in their asthma pharmaceutical consumption. The elasticity of demand for all respondents (the market) was applied to the theoretical framework to estimate the consumer welfare effects from the subsidy. It was found that with a relatively inelastic demand function there were significant consumer welfare gains from the presence of the subsidies; although a small deadweight loss was present. This study has important policy implications. It was concluded that the subsidy scheme does improve access to asthma pharmaceuticals to some individuals in society and it does provide significant consumer gains. In addition, the gains are likely to be greater than that estimated because of dynamic impacts, such as positive externalities. Further data analysis found that a significant proportion of survey respondents have a maximum willingness to pay in excess of the unsubsidised price, and therefore the subsidy scheme to these individuals is effectively a wealth transfer from the government to consumers. This implies that although the subsidisation of asthma pharmaceuticals does provide significant consumer gains, however, it does provide gains too many individuals who are prepared to pay in excess of the unsubsidised price.

I used on-site interviews and angler counts to estimate angler effort, catch and harvest rates, and total catch and total harvest. On the Smith River, angling pressure per km was most intense in the special management area, with most use occurring on weekend days. Anglers harvested approximately 90% of the rainbow trout they caught, and 63% of the rainbow trout stocked during the study period. Anglers harvested only 5% of the brown trout they caught. Philpott Reservoir was overwhelmingly a nonconsumptive black bass fishery (anglers harvested only 9% of the black bass they caught). I also estimated net economic value of both fisheries using the travel cost method (TCM) and contingent valuation method (CVM). In addition to estimating net economic value for the fisheries under current fishing conditions, I also explored changes in economic value under different fishing scenarios and alternative flow regimes. On the Smith River, doubling an angler's chance of catching a large trout (> 16 in.) had the highest net economic value of any scenario in all three river sections. The wild trout scenario had the highest net economic value in the special management area. On Philpott Reservoir, doubling an angler's chance of catching a black bass had the highest net economic value. Total economic value (including angler expenditures) of both fisheries was $656,140, only $13,000 less than the value of power produced at Philpott Dam during Fiscal Year 1995.

The deregulation of the footwear Industry during the 1980's has led to increasing pressures by manufacturers for protection against "unfair imports". In June 1992 an anti-dumping duty was imposed on "certain women's non leather footwear from China". By estimating the responsiveness of five different income groups to a change in the price of footwear, it was possible to determine the distributional effect of the duty among consumers. The empirical analysis undertaken in this thesis infers that the demand of all five income groups is inelastic with respect to changes in the price of footwear. However low income groups are more responsive to price changes than high income groups. These elasticities applied to the market for "certain women's footwear from China", illustrates that in the likely scenario that low income groups consume more of the cheap footwear, it was these groups that faced a greater loss in consumer surplus. The effect is a redistribution of income from low income groups to the footwear manufacturers, and a reduction in overall welfare. Further, from society’s perspective it was shown that imposing an anti-dumping duty on footwear, which is predominately bought by low income groups, would result in a greater loss to society as a whole.