Background: The outbreak of COVID-19 was followed by an unprecedented package of measures to protect public health. Over 150 countries mandated school closures to reduce the risk of transmission. Decisions on whether to close schools involve trade-offs between important effects on public health, learning outcomes, well-being of children, productivity of parents. Objectives: Investigate Peruvian citizens’ preferences for schools opening during a public-health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic in two scenarios: (i) when the threat from COVID-19 is low and schools are open; and, (ii) when the threat from COVID-19 is high and schools are closed. Methods: We conducted a Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) from 22 September to 17 October 2022, on which 2007 respondents assessed which policy measures to implement in the two scenarios. (i) In Scenario 1 “Schools are open”, children go to school, teachers and parents go to their jobs, but children still experience learning deficits from previous school closures. (ii) In Scenario 2 “Schools are closed”, children cannot go to school and do not receive any formal teaching, leading to learning losses; many teachers must change careers; and, many parents have to stay at home to take care of their children and lose income. Respondents were shown a range of policy measures in each of the scenarios and received information about the effects of each measure on public health, children's well-being and learning loss. Results: We found that most respondents in Scenario 1 preferred mandatory vaccination for teachers and quarantine measures. In Scenario 2 we found that most respondents were positive towards reopening school policies. In both Scenarios respondents prioritized mandatory vaccination and quarantine measures over other mitigation measures. In Scenario 2, most respondents from the Highland region selected opening schools with 100% on-location teaching while hybrid teaching was mostly selected in the Coast region. Most respondents (82%) evaluated PVE as a good method to involve citizens in policy decision-making. Conclusions: Policies that focus on prevention (e.g. mandatory vaccination for teachers and quarantine measures) can count on substantial support in a scenario when schools are open. The strong preference for opening schools with a noticeable difference in the way classes are provided (e.g. teaching on location most preferred by respondents from the Highlands and hybrid teaching by respondents from the Coast) show the importance of introducing differentiated strategies among regions.

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Since the 1940’s, job evaluation methods are being used to establish the relative value of jobs within organizations in order to determine salaries. Job evaluation methods have been studied, but there has not been much systematic reflection on the research conducted so far. This scoping review of 199 articles demonstrates that topics changed over decades, starting with methodological questions in the 1940’s, reflecting a start-up period. Historic overviews on wage policies appeared in the 1960’s, and the topic of gender wage inequality in the 1980’s. Guidelines were published in the 1990’s. From 2000 onwards, the main topic was adapting job evaluation methods to specific contexts. Research declined since 2010. There was hardly any research on appending changes in job evaluation methods and criteria. Given the ever-changing nature of work and the upcoming demographic changes, we recommend to revive scientific research on job evaluation and propose an agenda with research questions.@en

Several studies examined what drives citizens’ support for COVID-19 measures, but no works have addressed how the effects of these drivers are distributed at the individual level. Yet, if significant differences in support are present but not accounted for, policymakers’ interpretations could lead to misleading decisions. In this study, we use XGBoost, a supervised machine learning model, combined with SHAP (Shapley Additive eXplanations) to identify the factors associated with differences in policy support for COVID-19 measures and how such differences are distributed across different citizens and measures. We use secondary data from a Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) experiment, in which 1,888 Dutch citizens answered which COVID-19 measures should be imposed under four risk scenarios. We identified considerable heterogeneity in citizens’ support for different COVID-19 measures regarding different age groups, the weight given to citizens’ opinions and the perceived risk of getting sick of COVID-19. Data analysis methods employed in previous studies do not reveal such heterogeneity of policy support. Policymakers can use our results to tailor measures further to increase support for specific citizens/measures.

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This paper presents a micro-econometric framework to analyse choice data from participatory value evaluation (PVE) surveys. In a PVE survey respondents receive, similar to stated choice surveys, information on the social impacts of public sector projects before choosing the best policy portfolio according to their preferences. Respondents’ choices are limited by governmental and private budget constraints. The PVE data format is characterised by a mixture of discrete and continuous choice data. Building on recent literature of Kuhn–Tucker models, particularly the MDCEV model, a range of methodological and econometric contributions are provided facilitating model estimation and policy evaluation. We derive a set of closed form choice probabilities explaining the choice for the optimal portfolio with public projects, private consumption levels and whether to spend the public budget in full or not. The proposed policy evaluation framework is centred around the notion of social welfare maximisation. The parameter estimates are used to derive the optimal public sector budget and the corresponding portfolio maximising social welfare, but also to rank the set of feasible portfolios given a restricted budget, including sensitivity analyses. The proposed framework is illustrated using an empirical example on urban mobility investments in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

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In this article, the affiliation details for author Jose Ignacio Hernandez were incorrectly given as ‘Center of Economics for Sustainable Development (CEDES), Faculty of Economics and Government, Universidad San Sebastian, Lientur 1457, Concepción, Chile ' but should have been ‘Center of Economics for Sustainable Development (CEDES), Faculty of Economics and Government, Universidad San Sebastian, Concepción, Chile. The affiliation ‘Transport and Logistics Group, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands’ for authors Jose Ignacio Hernandez and Niek Mouter was missing. The original article has been corrected.

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Background: The stage of the pandemic significantly affects people’s preferences for (the societal impacts of) COVID-19 policies. No discrete choice experiments were conducted when the COVID-19 pandemic was in a transition phase. Objectives: This is the first study to empirically investigate how citizens weigh the key societal impacts of pandemic policies when the COVID-19 pandemic transitions into an endemic. Methods: We performed two discrete choice experiments among 2181 Dutch adults that included six attributes: COVID-19 deaths, physical health problems, mental health problems, financial problems, surgery delays and the degree to which individual liberties are restricted. We used latent class choice models to identify heterogeneous preferences for the impacts of COVID-19 measures across different groups of respondents. Results: A large majority of the participants in this study was willing to accept deaths to avoid that citizens experience physical complaints, mental health issues, financial problems and the postponement of surgeries. The willingness to tolerate COVID-19 deaths to avoid these societal impacts differed substantially between participants. When participants were provided with information about the stringency of COVID-19 measures, they assigned relatively less value to preventing the postponement of non-urgent surgeries for 1–3 months across all classes. Conclusions: Having gone through a pandemic, most Dutch citizens clearly prefer pandemic policies that consider citizens’ financial situations, physical problems, mental health problems and individual liberties, alongside the effects on excess mortality and pressure on healthcare.

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The need for engaging citizens in climate policymaking is increasingly recognised. Despite indications that the form of expert involvement can strongly influence participatory processes, this remains scarcely researched. We analysed two unique and contrasting cases of citizen engagement in national climate mitigation policy: (1) the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (ICA), the first national climate assembly involving live expert presentations and face-to-face deliberations; and (2) the Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) on Dutch climate policymaking, where more than 10,000 citizens compared policy options in an online environment based on expert-based information on policy effects. Taking a dramaturgical approach, we found that the opening up and closing down of policy options and perspectives was influenced by the setting, staging and scripting of expertise. Apart from providing information on policy options, experts had significant roles in design choices and formulating recommendations, which shaped citizens’ deliberations and policy advice. In deliberative processes, citizens’ deliberations can be further influenced by putting experts in a privileged spot and emphasising their authority, whereas in the setting of an online tool, experts’ design choices may be masked by the fact-like presentation of expertise. Future research should further investigate the role of experts and expertise across a wider range of practices. Nevertheless, we conclude that the high degree of required technical knowledge in climate mitigation policy naturally implies strong expert involvement, which concomitantly steers the results. Alternatively, we may search to enhance citizens’ engagement in guiding climate policymakers by focusing on citizens’ normative perspectives.

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Objective: Increasing healthcare expenditures require governments to make difficult prioritization decisions. Considering public preferences can help raise citizens’ support. Previous research has predominantly elicited preferences for the allocation of public resources towards specific treatments or patient groups and principles for resource allocation. This study contributes by examining public preferences for budget allocation over various healthcare purposes in the Netherlands. Methods: We conducted a Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) choice experiment in which 1408 respondents were asked to allocate a hypothetical budget over eight healthcare purposes: general practice and other easily accessible healthcare, hospital care, elderly care, disability care, mental healthcare, preventive care by encouragement, preventive care by discouragement, and new and better medicines. A default expenditure was set for each healthcare purpose, based on current expenditures. Respondents could adjust these default expenditures using sliders and were presented with the implications of their adjustments on health and well-being outcomes, the economy, and the healthcare premium. As a constraint, the maximum increase in the mandatory healthcare premium for adult citizens was €600 per year. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and a Latent Class Cluster Analysis (LCCA). Results: On average, respondents preferred to increase total expenditures on all healthcare purposes, but especially on elderly care, new and better medicines, and mental healthcare. Three preference clusters were identified. The largest cluster preferred modest increases in expenditures, the second a much higher increase of expenditures, and the smallest favouring a substantial reduction of the healthcare premium by decreasing the expenditure on all healthcare purposes. The analyses also demonstrated substantial preference heterogeneity between clusters for budget allocation over different healthcare purposes. Conclusions: The results of this choice experiment show that most citizens in the Netherlands support increasing healthcare expenditures. However, substantial heterogeneity was identified in preferences for healthcare purposes to prioritize. Considering these preferences may increase public support for prioritization decisions.

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Participatory value evaluation (PVE) has recently been introduced in the field of health as a new method to elicit stated preferences for public policies. PVE is a method in which respondents in a choice experiment are presented with various policy options and their attributes, and are asked to compose their portfolio of preference given a public-resource constraint. This paper aims to illustrate PVE’s potential for informing healthcare decision making and to position it relative to established preference-elicitation methods. We first describe PVE and its theoretical background. Next, by means of a narrative review of the eight existing PVE applications within and outside the health domain, we illustrate the different implementations of the main features of the method. We then compare PVE to several established preference-elicitation methods in terms of the structure and nature of the choice tasks presented to respondents. The portfolio-based choice task in a PVE requires respondents to consider a set of policy alternatives in relation to each other and to make trade-offs subject to one or more constraints, which more closely resembles decision making by policymakers. When using a flexible budget constraint, respondents can trade-off their private income with public expenditures. Relative to other methods, a PVE may be cognitively more demanding and is less efficient; however, it seems a promising complementary method for the preference-based assessment of health policies. Further research into the feasibility and validity of the method is required before researchers and policymakers can fully appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of the PVE as a preference-elicitation method.

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Objective: Here we investigate public preferences for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) certificates in the Netherlands, and whether these preferences differ between subgroups in the population. Methods: A survey including a discrete choice experiment was administered to 1500 members of the adult population of the Netherlands. Each participant was asked to choose between hypothetical COVID-19 certificates that differed in seven attributes: the starting date, and whether the certificate allowed gathering with multiple people, shopping without appointment, visiting bars and restaurants, visiting cinemas and theatres, attending events, and practising indoor sports. Latent class models (LCMs) were used to determine the attribute relative importance and predicted acceptance rate of hypothetical certificates. Results: Three classes of preference patterns were identified in the LCM. One class a priori opposed a certificate (only two attributes influencing preferences), another class was relatively neutral and included all attributes in their decision making, and the final class was positive towards a certificate. Respondents aged > 65 years and those who plan to get vaccinated were more likely to belong to the latter two classes. Being allowed to shop without appointment and to visit bars and restaurants was most important to all respondents, increasing predicted acceptance rate by 12 percentage points. Conclusions: Preferences for introduction of a COVID-19 certificate are mixed. A certificate that allows for shopping without appointment and visiting bars and restaurants is likely to increase acceptance. The support of younger citizens and those who plan to get vaccinated seems most sensitive to the specific freedoms granted by a COVID-19 certificate.@en

While several governmental and research efforts are set upon mobility-as-a-service (MaaS), most of them are driven by individual travel behavior and potential usage. However, considering only individuals’ preferences carries the risk of neglecting societal benefits going beyond individual travel behavior. This study addresses the valuation of different features of MaaS-services from a social desirability perspective as compared to social investments in biking infrastructure and in public transport, and aims at eliciting trade-offs between different features of such projects. This analysis is conducted on the basis of Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE). In PVE-experiments, individuals select their preferred portfolio of government projects given a constrained public budget and societal preferences for (the impacts of) government projects can be determined based on these choices. The results show that the population of Rotterdam exhibits a willingness to allocate public resources to all types of investment projects considered in the analysis. However, the willingness to allocate resources to bike infrastructure projects and public transport seems to be higher than the willingness to dedicate resources to MaaS subsidies. Within the different types of MaaS subsidies considered, subsidies aimed at sustainability exhibit a larger social valuation. Strong negative synergies among similar projects exist, signalizing that individuals prefer diversifying the use of public resources across different types of investment projects.@en

We propose three procedures based on association rules (AR) learning and random forests (RF) to support the specification of a portfolio choice model applied in data from complex choice experiment data, specifically a Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) choice experiment. In a PVE choice experiment, respondents choose a combination of alternatives, subject to a resource constraint. We combine a methodological-iterative (MI) procedure with AR learning and RF models to support the specification of parameters of a portfolio choice model. Additionally, we use RF model predictions to contrast the validity of the behavioural assumptions of different specifications of the portfolio choice model. We use data of a PVE choice experiment conducted to elicit the preferences of Dutch citizens for lifting COVID-19 measures. Our results show model fit and interpretation improvements in the portfolio choice model, compared with conventional model specifications. Additionally, we provide guidelines on the use of outcomes from AR learning and RF models from a choice modelling perspective.@en

We use Value Sensitive Design for the development of an ethical framework for autonomous systems in Defence in the Australian context. Two novel empirical data gathering methods are deployed for mining stakeholder's values, namely Group Decision Room (GDR) and Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE). GDR findings reveal a general concern for environmental values, geo-political and economic stability. A PVE based on these and other values is designed around an autonomous mine counter underwater vessel and an autonomous drone that drops bombs. @en

Achieving energy efficiency in the built environment requires extensive efforts in the renovation and adaptation of housing stock. A promising design solution is the heat pump. While gas boiler systems are commonly used in Dutch non-profit housing stock, the share of dwellings with a heat pump grew from 1.6% in 2017 to 3.2% in 2021. However, building characteristics and the energy consumption of dwellings with a heat pump are unclear. Therefore, a dataset of 69,422 dwellings with different types of heat pumps has been examined and compared to dwellings with a traditional HR107 condensing gas boiler. This research reports average characteristics and the average actual energy consumption of dwellings with all-electric, hybrid and gas absorption heat pump systems. Dwellings with a heat pump system are on average of higher building quality, their gas consumption is lower and their electricity consumption is higher than dwellings with an HR107 condensing gas boiler. Detailed insight is provided for dwellings with different heat pump systems and for dwellings with different building characteristics. Further research to determine the energy performance of dwellings with specific heat pump configurations is recommended in light of the energy transition in the built environment.

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The upcoming vogue of climate assemblies and other forms of mini-publics are to give citizens a central role in climate policy-making and to break the political impasse. Yet climate mini-publics face challenges in political environments too, such as co-option, favoring expert opinions, and losing touch with the broader public. To remedy such pitfalls, recent papers have argued to combine synchronous deliberations of small groups of citizens with online participation procedures for the larger public. In this article, we report the results of a three-step combination model, where first a mini-public in the region of Súdwest-Fryslân (NL) was given a “carte blanche” to draft the content and the parameters of several related policy alternatives. Second, their proposals were fed into a digital participation tool to consult the wider public. Third, a citizens forum translated the outcomes of the maxi-public into policy recommendations, which were unanimously approved by the municipal council. In this paper, we report our findings of combining mini- and maxi-publics and how the actors involved evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of the combination of these two participatory approaches.@en

Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic forms an unprecedented public health, economic, and social crisis. Uptake of vaccination is critical for controlling the pandemic. Nevertheless, vaccination hesitancy is considerable, requiring policies to promote uptake. We investigate Dutch citizens’ preferences for policies that aim to promote vaccination through facilitating choice of vaccination, profiling it as the norm, making vaccination more attractive through rewards, or punishing people who reject vaccination. Methods: We conducted a discrete choice experiment in which 747 respondents were asked to choose between policies to promote vaccination uptake and their impacts on the number of deaths, people with permanent health problems, households with income loss, and a tax increase. Results: Respondents generally had a negative preference for policies that promote vaccination. They particularly disliked policies that punish those who reject the vaccine and were more favorable toward policies that reward vaccination, such as awarding additional rights to vaccinated individuals through vaccination passports. Respondents who reject vaccination were in general much more negative about the policy options than respondents who consider accepting the vaccine. Nevertheless, vaccination passports are supported by both respondents who accept the vaccine, those who reject vaccination, and those who are unsure about vaccination. Conclusions: This study provides concrete directions for governments attempting to increase the vaccination uptake in ways that are supported by the public. Our results could encourage policy makers to focus on policy options that make vaccination easier and reward people who take the vaccine, as especially the implementation of vaccination passports was supported.@en

Energy communities are decentralized socio-technical systems where energy is jointly generated and distributed among a community of households locally. As the energy that is shared among the community is commonly electricity, the energy community's literature is dominated by electricity-systems and mostly neglects collective thermal energy as an alternative energy carrier for heating and cooling. Our goal in this article is to organise the existing research on “community-based initiatives for heating and cooling ” by using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, and based on this analysis, identify a future research agenda. Our analysis reveals that the number of publications in this area has been growing fast recently, focusing on technological challenges. Fewer papers take an institutional point of view, in which they cover policies, price reforms and values. The institutionally oriented papers focus on solar thermal energy and bio-based thermal energy. Other thermal technologies, such as geothermal wells, are largely neglected in the literature, but are known to have different institutional constraints. Informal rules and values are mainly researched from a consumer perspective. Since energy communities often consist of consumers and prosumers, additional research is warranted into this area. Evaluative criteria for such communities are limited to economic aspects and greenhouse gas emissions, while indicators such as soil pollution and spatial planning that may play an equally important role are neglected. We recommend studying thermal energy communities as distinctive entities with their own unique characteristics, and we develop a research agenda for this purpose.@en

Background: The COVID-19 outbreak early 2020 was followed by an unprecedented package of measures. The relative calmness of the pandemic early 2022 provides a momentum to prepare for various scenarios. Objectives: As acceptance of COVID-19 measures is key for public support we investigated citizens’ preferences towards imposing measures in four scenarios: 1) spring/summer scenario with few hospitalizations; 2) autumn/winter scenario with many hospitalizations; 3) a new contagious variant, the impact on hospitalizations is unclear; 4) a new contagious variant, hospitalizations will substantially increase. Methods: Study 1 comprised a Participatory Value Evaluation (PVE) in which 2011 respondents advised their government on which measures to impose in the four scenarios. Respondents received information regarding the impact of each measure on the risk that the health system would be overloaded. To triangulate the results, 2958 respondents in Study 2 evaluated the acceptability of the measures in each scenario. Results: Measures were ranked similarly by respondents in Study 1 and 2: 1) the majority of respondents thought that hygiene measures should be upheld, even in the spring/summer; 2) the majority supported booster vaccination, working from home, encouraging self-testing, and mandatory face masks from scenario 2 onwards; 3) even in scenario 4, lockdown measures were not supported by the majority. Young respondents were willing to accept more risks for the health system than older respondents. Conclusion: The results suggest that policies that focus on prevention (through advising low-impact hygiene measures) and early response to moderate threats (by scaling up to moderately restrictive measures and boostering) can count on substantial support. There is low support for lockdown measures even under high-risk conditions, which further emphasizes the importance of prevention and a timely response to new threats. Our results imply that young citizens’ concerns, in particular, should be addressed when restrictive COVID-19 measures are to be implemented.@en

Objectives: Research efforts evaluating the role of altruistic motivations behind health policy support are usually based on direct preference elicitation procedures, which may be biased. We propose an indirect measurement approach to approximate self-protection–related and altruistic motivations underlying preferences for public health policies. Methods: Our new approach relies on associations between on the one hand decision makers’ perceived health risk for themselves and for close relatives and on the other hand their observed preferences for health policies that reduce such risks. The approach allows to make a rough distinction between health-related self-protection and local altruistic motives behind preferences for health policies. We illustrate our approach using data obtained from a discrete choice experiment in the context of policies to relax coronavirus-related lockdown measures in The Netherlands. Results: Our results show that the approach is able to uncover that (1) people who think they have a high chance of experiencing health risks from a COVID-19 infection are more willing to accept a societal or personal sacrifice, (2) people with a higher health risk perception for their relatives have a higher willingness to accept sacrifices than people with a higher health risk perception for themselves, and (3) people who perceive that they have a high risk of dying of COVID-19 have a higher willingness to accept sacrifices than those anticipating less severe consequences of COVID-19. Conclusions: Our method offers a useful proxy metric to distinguish health-related self-protection and local altruism as drivers of citizens’ responses to healthcare policies.@en

Brede welvaart betekent breder naar vooruitgang kijken dan in termen van economische groei of – in het mobiliteitsdomein – capaciteitsknelpunten alleen. De behoefte aan een brede welvaart benadering resoneert in toenemende mate bij professionals, beleidsmakers en politici. Het oude verhaal is als een jas die om meerdere redenen steeds minder goed past. Maar er moet tegelijkertijd nog een grote slag worden gemaakt om een nieuw breed-welvaartsverhaal zinvol toe te kunnen passen. Het kiezen van een set indicatoren is een eerste stap, die erkent dat het streven naar brede welvaart of ‘het goede leven’ niet eendimensionaal kan zijn. In dit artikel bepleiten wij dat het echter niet de laatste stap kan zijn. Sturen op brede welvaart vraagt ook om uitspraken over hoe hoog of laag de scores op indicatoren mogen zijn en om informatie die helpt bij het maken van afwegingen. Want er zullen altijd dilemma’s zijn, al is het maar omdat in mobiliteitsbeleid sneller of makkelijker reizen voor de één vrijwel altijd samengaat met meer emissies, meer hinder, minder bereikbaarheid of minder veiligheid voor de ander. De vraag hoe dergelijke afwegingen te rechtvaardigen zijn is een belangrijke om te stellen. Om het brede welvaart debat verder te brengen moeten we daarom terug naar de basis. Wat zijn ook alweer de filosofische perspectieven op het goede leven en ‘doing the right thing’? Aan de hand van de drie klassieke normatief ethische stromingen – te weten het utilitarisme, de deontologie en de deugdenethiek – bespreken we verschillende antwoorden op deze vraag. We laten ook zien hoe verschillende instrumenten om beleidsopties te evalueren voortkomen uit bepaalde ethische stromingen en wat hun tekortkomingen zijn. We beargumenteren dat het nieuw ontwikkelde instrument de Participatieve Waarde Evaluatie (PWE) de potentie in zich heeft om recht te doen aan alle drie de stromingen en verrijkende inzichten biedt die het brede welvaart debat verder brengen. Om dit te illustreren eindigen we met een voorstel voor een PWE-raadpleging over de invulling van de mobiliteitstransitie. Met de resultaten hiervan kan de politiek kennis nemen van wat Nederlanders denken over de grote strategische keuzen en wat voor hen een toekomstbestendig en rechtvaardig vervoerssysteem is dat de brede welvaart bevordert. @en