Since 2021, interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and associated trading volume have increased substantially, as celebrities increasingly adopted profile picture non-fungible tokens (PFP NFTs) for their social media profile images. In this study, the factors influencing consumer decisions on purchasing a PFP NFT were analyzed by Conjoint analysis. The characteristics of profile picture and NFT were researched through previous studies, and key attributes and levels that affect purchasing of a PFP NFT were set through market research. The results of the study showed that consumers made decisions based on the number of promoting celebrities as the most important attribute when they buy a PFP NFT, followed by number of community members, floor price, and commercial use of NFT intellectual property. This research has value in that it suggests a forward-looking perspective regarding development of the NFT market, which is in its early stages.
Open access
Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Tokenomics, the study and design of economic systems within blockchain-based platforms, is crucial for the success and sustainability of decentralized ecosystems. The growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, decentralized finance (DeFi), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has highlighted the importance of robust tokenomic frameworks that ensure fairness, inclusivity, and stability in digital platforms. This research explores the challenges faced by blockchain networks in their incentive structures, particularly addressing the adverse effects of disproportionately rewarding large token holders. To address these issues, the research critically examines existing tokenomics models employed by prominent blockchain platforms and their respective impacts on ecosystem health. It highlights how poorly designed incentive mechanisms can exacerbate wealth inequality, stifle competition, and discourage broader participation. Platforms that employ reward systems based primarily on token holdings tend to benefit large holders disproportionately, which risks centralization and creates a breeding ground for speculative practices that undermine market stability. To address these issues, the article proposes a new framework for equitable tokenomics, focused on inclusivity, fairness, and sustainability. Key components of this framework include proportional rewards, governance rights, long-term token holding mechanisms, dynamic adjustment systems, and programs that encourage smaller holders or new participants. The proposed framework aims to foster a more equitable environment that values participation and contribution over mere financial dominance, ensuring the system remains decentralized and offers opportunities for all stakeholders to engage meaningfully. In conclusion, this research underscores the need for more equitable tokenomics models that can drive sustainable growth and maintain trust within decentralized platforms. By addressing flaws in existing systems and proposing a framework that aligns rewards, governance, and participation, the authors aim to contribute to the creation of more inclusive, stable, and resilient decentralized ecosystems.
In this study, we propose a valuation methodology for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), focusing on the profile picture (PFP) NFT category represented by the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). To identify the attributes that influence the value of individual BAYC NFTs, we develop a hedonic pricing model that uses the NFT’s value as the dependent variable and its properties as independent variables. We apply Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) to quantify attributes of NFTs. Three hedonic models—linear, quadratic, and full quadratic—are proposed. For the full quadratic model, we introduce a systematic procedure to select first-order, second-order, and interaction terms in the model. To evaluate the performance of the proposed models, we carried out comparative computational experiments. We collected actual BAYC transaction data and split it into a training set (70%) and a validation set (30%). For benchmarking purposes, we compare the proposed models against four machine learning algorithms: Random Forest, Support Vector Regression (SVR), XGBoost, and LightGBM. The machine learning models perform well on the training set, however, this was largely due to overfitting. In contrast, the proposed hedonic models maintained consistent performance with minimal degradation from the training to the validation set. Among them, the full quadratic model demonstrates the highest explanatory power on the validation set in terms of adjusted R² and other evaluation metrics.
Aaron M. Shew, Heather A. Snell, Rodolfo M. Nayga, Mary C. Lacity
Abstract Blockchain (BC) technology, defined as a shared information system to validate, secure, and permanently store transactions among multiple parties on a distributed ledger, presents many applications in agricultural and food industries. This study examines the application of BC in food traceability for beef in the United States using a choice experiment. Findings indicate that consumers value USDA certifications over BC traceability to guide their meat preferences. Our study suggests a number of industry implications, the most important of which suggests focusing business and consumer education on the value of product data, rather than on the value of the technologies that manage data.
In the past two decades, land finance, a phenomenon of the financing arrangement based on land development, has gradually become a fiscal model that profoundly affects China's economic development. Based on the theory of fiscal decentralization and environmental federalism, this study employs a specially designed two-stage regression method to capture both direct and indirect (through economic development and industrial structure) influences of land finance on carbon emissions. Using the provincial panel data for the period of 1998–2016, the empirical results indicate that the direct influences are dominant, and the total impact of land finance on carbon emissions is non-linear and is dependent on the level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita. After 2003, the total effect is that carbon emissions increase continuously along with the economic development. To balance economic development and environmental protection and to enhance sustainable development, the traditional style of land finance should be changed as soon as possible.
Blockchain is highly secure in design and can hand huge data efficiently. A smart contract, based on a blockchain, can automate the entire process and make the contract self-executing in nature. Since the first introduction of these technologies in the 1990s, they have been at the center interest for academia and industry. Numerous researchers and practitioners have investigated the principles and usage of blockchain and smart contracts. However, little is coincidental regarding estimating the consumer’s additional willingness to pay (WTP) and analyzing the relationship with socio-economic characteristics of the consumer for blockchain and smart contracts in the insurance sector. This study conducted the survey on 1000 heads of the household or homemakers who represent population well in South Korea and estimated additional WTP using one-and-one-half-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation (OOHB DC CV) method. About 65% of sample respondents answered they are willing to pay some additional premium for blockchain and smart contracts. The mean WTP has the value of KRW 28,425.43 (USD 25.38) and the median WTP is KRW 16,111.71 (USD 14.39). Those with high incomes, high education and more insurance contracts are more likely to pay extra for insurance policies using blockchain and smart contracts. Considering the total number of households in South Korea, the aggregated additional WTP is about 8 percent of the net income of the insurance industry in fiscal year of 2017. Consequently, strategic development of insurance products using block chains and smart contracts targeting educated consumers with high-income will increase the number of policyholders, which can in turn increase premium revenues.
Sierra Ison, Jeremy Hills, Cherie W. Morris, Selina M. Stead
Marine Protected Areas (MPA) are mostly studied from an environmental context. A review of available information identified a lack of knowledge in sustainable mechanisms to finance MPA networks. At the United Nations Ocean Conference in 2017, Fiji reaffirmed its voluntary commitment to make 30% of its inshore and offshore marine area MPAs by 2020 under Sustainable Development Goal 14. The work presented here uses empirical data to explore potential benefits from selected community-based MPAs to recipient local stakeholders. A Willingness to Pay (WTP) and Willingness to Contribute Time (WtCT) method was used to explore the extent to which bottom-up governance systems represent a potential financing mechanism of a MPA network. Results of 115 interviews concluded that proximity to a fishing market, dependence on marine resources, food security, income and international commitments were significant variables influencing stakeholder's WTP and WtCT to manage a MPA. We argue that there is a discrepancy between WtCT and WTP driven by income constraints. Thus, by using WTP and WtCT to support financing of a MPA network, a Provincial Trust Fund (PTF) could promote an equitable and benefits-based contribution. Equally important, a PTF has a polycentric and decentralized governance model, which endorses sustainable management of traditional fishing communities. The conclusions provide insight into a bottom-up approach for long-term financial sustainability of Fiji's national MPA commitments.
Open access
Economic and Environmental Valuation
Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
This paper analyses the heterogeneity of household consumer preferences for electricity service contracts in a smart grid context. Platform pricing strategies that could incentivise consumers to participate in a two-sided electricity platform market are discussed. The research is based on original data from a discrete choice experiment on electricity service contracts that was conducted with 1,892 electricity consumers in Great Britain in 2015. We estimate a flexible mixed logit model in willingness to pay space and exploit the results in posterior analysis. The findings suggest that while consumers are willing to pay for technical support services, they are likely to demand significant compensation to share their usage and personally identifying data and to participate in automated demand response programs involving remote monitoring and control of electricity usage. Cross-subsidisation of consumers combining appropriate participation payments with sharing of bill savings could incentivise participation of the number of consumers required to provide the optimal level of demand response. We also examine the preference heterogeneity to suggest how, by targeting customers with specific characteristics, smart electricity service providers could significantly reduce their customer acquisition costs.
Since the seminal work of Oates (1972) on scal federalism, a central question of public finance has been which level of a federation should be as- signed the provision of public goods. In this paper we study the problem of a government that is to choose the optimal centralization/decentralization mechanism for the final treatment of municipal solid waste. We analyze incentives, equilibria and implications of the governance framework for the disposal of waste. The key decisions revolve around the mobility of waste and the externalities (pollution) associated with its disposal, be it incineration or landfill. Moreover, if the Regions are characterized by different levels of efficiency in the processes they apply to the final treat- ment of waste, in theory a certain degree of waste mobility across regions should allow to reap the benefits of higher efficiency. On the other hand, as transportation and other environmental costs implied by mobility and concentration are significant, a trade-off emerges. Our model evaluates the implications of that trade-off for the optimal degree of decentralization in waste management.
Gebara M.F., L. Muccillo, May P., Claudia Suzanne Marie Nathalie Vitel · 6 authors
Key lessons While the constitutional rights (e.g. property rights) of indigenous peoples (IP) are strong in Brazil and may help to overcome their vulnerability, they are rarely enforceable and do not offer sufficient safeguards. Informed consultation and a structured free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) process that considers cultural issues are fundamental to ensuring acceptance and consent by IP. Local environmental funds can be a tool for increasing autonomy and decentralization while sharing benefits with IP and financing long-term and specific demands that can change over time. Safeguard strategies implemented by the Amazon Fund to avoid conflicts of interest may result in restrictions on the participation of IP, having implications related to the legitimacy of decision-making in the distribution of benefits. The absence of timely financial flows to meet IP needs may be a considerable risk since it can encourage environmentally damaging activities. Relying on the voluntary market may be risky for IP initiatives because of market instability and possible lack of funding.
Open access
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
A theory of payment for ecosystem services (PES) pricing consistent with dynamic efficiency and sustainable income requires optimized shadow prices. Since ecosystem services are generally interdependent, this requires joint optimization across multiple resource stocks. We develop such a theory in the context of watershed conservation and groundwater extraction. The optimal program can be implemented with a decentralized system of ecosystem payments to private watershed landowners, financed by efficiency prices of groundwater set by a public utility. The theory is extended to cases where land is publicly owned, conservation instruments exhibit non-convexities on private land, or the size of a conservation project is exogenous. In these cases, conservation investment can be financed from benefit taxation of groundwater consumers. While volumetric conservation surcharges induce inefficient water use, a dynamic lump-sum tax finances investment without distorting incentives. Since the optimal level of conservation is generated as long as payments are correct at the margin, any surplus can be returned to consumers through appropriate block pricing. The present value gain in consumer surplus generated by the conservation-induced reduction in groundwater scarcity serves as a lower bound to the benefits of conservation without explicit measurement of other benefits such as recreation, biodiversity, and cultural values.
Open access
2 source records
Economic and Environmental Valuation
Water resources management and optimization
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
We hereby propose a model to analyze the provision of environmental protection activities (United Nation 2005) with positive interregional externalities in order to verify - at least in theory - whether this kind of policy is better accomplished through centralized policymaking, which implies a coordinated solution among local representatives, or a decentralized system, whereby local authorities independently finance and implement their environmental protection policy. The research question concerns the identification of criteria on how to allocate powers and functions to environmental management at different tiers of government. Moreover, modelling interregional externalities as a mechanism contributing to lowering the cost of financing environmental policy in each region (production externality), we can assume that different environmental policies are allowed across regions. Given this general framework, considerations favouring either institutional setting in terms of individuals’ welfare seem to involve interaction among these key elements: the extent of the inter-jurisdictional spillovers, the size of local jurisdictions and the regional preferences for environmental protection policy.
The paper deals with the equivalence between taxation and emission permits according to different viewpoints: the first one sets prices, the second one quantities. But equivalence is more formal than substantial: taxation is the generating fact, the market of permits does not exist spontaneously. Its price is unstable because supply is not independent from demand. It is manipulatable either ex ante when free allowances are allocated or ex post during the period of compliance through Walrasian tatonnement. A real economic determination of prices exists only when there are unit taxes or penalties on emissions exceeding the quotas. In order to avoid these drawbacks, pay-as-bid auctions must be used and free allowances avoided. Taxation or the price of emission permits are the real option value of changing techniques. An assignment rule is proposed : taxes are assigned to reduce average emissions and permits to reduce marginal emissions. In order to transform the cost into a real change of techniques, it is necessary to finance the sector of research and development of an amount greater than the taxes levied on pollution, which serve at paying the rent of innovation. These extra subsidies are used to move factors of production as capital from industry towards the innovation sector. The tax equivalence is ternary and concerns the taxes on pollution, capital and energy, because extracting fossil fuels is similar as innovation. Decentralization through market schemes induces that depollution has a marketable cost.
On January 8, 1997, the former President of Brazil, Fernando Enrique Cardoso signed the National Water Resource Policy into law (Law No. 9.433, 1997). The key principles of the National Water Policy include: an integrated approach with the river basin as the planning unit, water as a fragile and finite resource, water as an economic good, and finally, decentralized and participatory management of the resource (Formiga and Scatasta, forthcoming). The legislation provided for the implementation of bulk water pricing with the resulting revenues meant to finance the activities mandated by basin committees in the watershed area of Rio ParaÃba Do Sul (in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and also in the state of Minas Gerais, that basin committee is Comitê para Integraςão da Bacia Hidrográfica do Rio ParaÃba Do Sul (CEIVAP) (Abers and Keck, 2004). To improve the sustainability of many different resources it is a widely accepted concept that charging a fee for something will spur sparing use by the target audience, particularly if the price is high. One-hundred percent of the collected monies have been invested within the basin; mainly designated to the following: non-structural institutional interventions, sediment control projects, and municipal wastewater treatment. Payments from agriculture and small hydroelectric plants have been mostly symbolic or non-existent and payments from other sectors have not been high enough to maintain a sustainable system. Convincing those that have not been actively participating is central to the success of this initiative: this paper will explain a framework called Social Marketing which is becoming more widely used throughout the globe to inspire behavior change. Social Marketing is a tool that can be used to persuade more users to pay the cobrança.
Open access
Water resources management and optimization
Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
Carlos Eduardo Frickmann Young, Carlos A. Roncisvalle
The objective of this study is to examine the evolution and characteristics of the financing for the nvironment in Brazil, in order to identify the advances and retreats after the Rio 92 Conference. Brazil has a very decentralized administration, composed of three independent levels of public administration: the federal government, 27 state governments, and more than 5000 municipios, " or municipalities; all of them with specific environmental institutions. However, at the time of the completion of this report, there were no indicators that aggregate information from these different institutional levels for the 1992-2001 period.(1) Thus, this study was a first effort to generate this kind of figures. Given the very short time for its completion, the main priority was to identify the resource flows from the federal government and some selected states. Efforts to estimate spending on pollution control and other environmental activities by the private sector were also made. In addition, the issue of funding sources is also discussed. Despite many methodological problems involved in the elaboration of these indicators, it was possible to identify trends and conclusions for environmental spending. At the federal government level, it was estimated that environmental expenditures were between 0.4% and 1% of the federal spending. Another important finding was that, although there was an official commitment to increase efforts in this area after the Rio 92 Conference, the overall federal government expenditures in environmental issues did not increase during the 1993-2000 period. Moreover, a matter of concern was the declining quality of this spending, with fewer resources directed to end-activities and more money diverted to means-expenditures. An important cause of this was the increasing share of debt related expenditures (interests and amortization) in the total budget. On the other hand, investments suffered cutbacks, particularly in the more recent period, and the expenditures in personnel fell systematically by 25% in constant prices during the second half of the nineties. Environmental projects are the most important single element in international cooperation agreements. However, the flow of foreign resources presented a declining trend since 1994, oscillating between 6% and 17% of total expenditures. Most of these resources come from external credit operations (loans), which means that in the long term, they represent an extra pressure of financial expenses in the budget. The proportion of international donations/total expenditures in 2000 fell to the lowest level in the series (2.0%), clearly indicating the decline of international support for environmental projects in Brazil. Results for the 1996-98 period show that, if sanitation costs are included (an overestimate since it also considers water supply), environmental expenditures are relatively more important for local governments: around 9% of the total public spending in the sample of municipios considered. State governments are in the second position, spending around 1.5% of their budget on environmental issues, in contrast to the less than 1% of the federal government. For this reason, there remains a clear need to generate better aggregate figures for the states and municipios for the whole period. The methodologies used for public budgeting and expenditure control vary widely, making it very hard to supply compatible aggregate numbers. In the three states where longer time series were estimated (São Paulo, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul), there was no consistent trend of increasing expenditures on environmental objectives. Another gap that needs to be fulfilled refers to the private sector environmental spending. There were positive signals which indicated that the private sector is getting more concerned with the environmental issues, particularly those agents that have interests/responsibilities at the international level. It was calculated that the environmental spending of the industry sector was around R$ 160 million per year, slightly less than 1% of its value added. Although it is expected that this number will increase in the future, it is considerably lower than the public sector spending on environmental issues. It is very difficult to aggregate all these figures, but assuming for the year 2000 that the public spending on environmental issues was of 1.5% of the total, the public environmental spending would be of 0.33% of GDP, and an annual expenditure per capita of R$ 22.9 per capita (US$ 9.2 per capita). If the estimated industrial environmental spending (R$ 160 million) is added, the total spending becomes R$ 4.1 billion (0.34% of GDP), or R$ 23.9 per capita (US$ 9.6 per capita). Most of the funding for environmental projects comes from the government (mainly federal, through BNDES), international development agencies, or from companies' own resources. The private financial sector has a minor role on the financing of environmental expenditures but, gain, there are signals of positive changes, with the creation of innovative private funds specialized in environmentally friendly projects that combine financial and "green" interests as an example. The consolidation of economic instruments in international environmental agreements, particularly the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases emissions, may accelerate this new financial market. Another potential source of funding for environmental projects is connected to the implementation of economic instruments in the environmental management system. Command-andcontrol procedures, such as licensing and emission standards, largely dominate the environmental regulation in Brazil. However, some interesting experiences, such as the "green" tax rebound (ICMS verde) and the recent changes in the water resources policy adopting the user/polluter-pays principle, indicate that the role of economic instruments will increase and, consequently, that there is potential for developing self-sustained financial mechanisms to sponsor environmental expenditures. (1) After the completion of this research, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) published estimates of public spending for the 1996-98 period (IBGE 2001). Whenever relevant, these figures were also added to the analysis, but with an alert that they were obtained using different methodological procedures."