Joshua M. Duke

Bio: Joshua M. Duke is an academic researcher from University of Delaware. The author has contributed to research in topics: Farmland preservation & Land use. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 93 publications receiving 1958 citations. Previous affiliations of Joshua M. Duke include Economic Research Service & University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Willingness to Pay for Agricultural Land Preservation and Policy Process Attributes: Does the Method Matter?

Abstract: This article examines relationships between willingness to pay for land preservation and policy process attributes. The approach departs from traditional welfare assessments in that it does not constrain attributes of the policy process to be utility-neutral. Results indicate policy process attributes may influence utility in some circumstances, even after controlling for the influence of land use outcomes often correlated with specific policy techniques. Results further imply that in some cases, even comprehensive specification of land use outcomes by stated preference instruments may be insufficient to prevent systematic shifts in willingness to pay related to unspecified, yet assumed, policy process attributes.

Willingness to Pay for Land Preservation across States and Jurisdictional Scale: Implications for Benefit Transfer

Abstract: In stated preference valuation of farmland preservation, respondents are often told that preservation will occur within various jurisdictional scales—that is, community or state—but are not told the specific location of parcels. The resultant availability of welfare estimates for different scales and regions provides numerous avenues for benefit transfer. This paper provides a systematic assessment of transfer error, contrasting different methods for the transfer of farmland preservation values across states and jurisdictional scales. Results drawn from multistate choice experiments suggest that the choice of across scale versus across state transfer method can have significant implications for transfer validity.

The Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides access to information on a variety of topics related to the environment and strives to inform citizens of health risks. The EPA also has an extensive library network that consists of 26 libraries throughout the United States, which provide access to a plethora of information to EPA employees, scientists, and researchers. The EPA implemented a reorganization project to digitize their materials so they would be more accessible to a wider range of users, but this plan was drastically accelerated when the EPA was threatened with a budget cut. It chose to close and reduce the hours and services of some of their libraries. As a result, the agency was accused of denying users the “right to know” by making information unavailable, not providing an adequate strategic plan, and discarding vital materials. This case study explores the background of the digitization project, the practices implemented, and the critiques of the project.

Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies

Abstract: This article proposes contemporary best-practice recommendations for stated preference (SP) studies used to inform decision making, grounded in the accumulated body of peer-reviewed literature. These recommendations consider the use of SP methods to estimate both use and non-use (passive-use) values, and cover the broad SP domain, including contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments. We focus on applications to public goods in the context of the environment and human health but also consider ways in which the proposed recommendations might apply to other common areas of application. The recommendations recognize that SP results may be used and reused (benefit transfers) by governmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations, and that all such applications must be considered. The intended result is a set of guidelines for SP studies that is more comprehensive than that of the original National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Blue Ribbon Panel on contingent valuation, is more germane to contemporary applications, and reflects the two decades of research since that time. We also distinguish between practices for which accumulated research is sufficient to support recommendations and those for which greater uncertainty remains. The goal of this article is to raise the quality of SP studies used to support decision making and promote research that will further enhance the practice of these studies worldwide.

Consistency in the analytic hierarchy process: a new approach

Abstract: In this paper, we present a statistical criterion for accepting/rejecting the pairwise reciprocal comparison matrices in the analytic hierarchy process. We have studied the consistency in random matrices of different sizes. We do not agree with the traditional criterion of accepting matrices due to their inflexibility and because it is too restrictive when the size of the matrix increases. Our system is capable of adapting the acceptance requirements to different scopes and consistency necessities. The advantages of our consistency system are the introduction of adaptability in the acceptance criterion and the simplicity of the index we have used, the eigenvalue (λmax) and the simplicity of the criterion.