In this paper I examine the link between knowledge about antibiotic consumption and resistance and willingness-to-pay for antibiotic-free products I designed a survey instrument to collect primary data since no secondary dataset exists with the required information. The survey includes a choice experiment using the sequential bid Contingent Valuation Method to collect the willingness-to-pay data. Using the sequential bid approach respondents are presented with a sequence of hypothetical market scenarios to ascertain the interval which contains their true willingness-to-pay. The method applied to estimating the willingness-to-pay has up to six scenarios. This results in tighter WTP intervals and therefore more precise bounds for the respondents' true willingness-to-pay. The data indicates that on average respondents are willing to pay 57% more for the antibiotic free product they purchase the most and 52% more for the product they purchase the least compared to the regular option of the good. I find that for the product most purchased a one standard deviation increase in knowledge increases the willingness-to-pay for the antibiotic-free product by 0.085 over the price of the regular option of the good.

In this paper we explore the concept of optimal antibiotic use by focusing on antibiotic over/under use. We define antibiotic overuse as any uncoordinated use in excess of the social optimum which would prevail in a coordinated market. Using this definition, we model humans' utility maximising behaviour with regards to antibiotic use in the presence of a bacterial infection in contrast to a social planner's welfare maximising behaviour. In our simple two agent model, each agent takes an antibiotic if the probability of being cured is greater than the cost benefit ratio of antibiotic use. Overuse depends on the infection transmission rate and the cost of antibiotic use. When the transmission rate is 0 the market case coincides with the social optimum. For sufficiently high costs associated with antibiotic use we see under use of antibiotics while sufficiently low costs result in overuse. This paper contributes to the literature by explicitly modelling the behavioural mechanisms through which behaviour will increase or decrease antibiotic resistance, providing critical insight into the circumstances under which regulation and restriction of use is more important.

In this paper I examine how first-year students engage with the various methods of content support available to them. In a large UK university, first year economics students can use office hours, discussion boards, an online Q&A session for their introductory economics unit, and a peer-assisted learning and support scheme. Despite these various methods, educators have generally indicated that only some students engage with the support being offered and much of these resources such as office hours are largely underutilized. I use a large-scale survey of all first-year Economics UG students and focus group discussions with a target sample of 30 students to understand the student perspectives on the content support we offer. The data from a survey of all first-year students and focus group discussions with 30 students. This study will provide data on the student perspectives of these content support schemes and will help us as educators to better engage and support our students.