Dealing with preference uncertainty in contingent willingness to pay for a nature protection program: A new approach

In this paper, we propose an alternative preference uncertainty measurement approach where respondents have the option to indicate their willingness to pay (WTP) for a nature protection program either as exact values or intervals from a payment card, depending on whether they are uncertain about the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological economics 2013-04, Vol.88, p.76-85
Main Authors: Voltaire, Louinord, Pirrone, Claudio, Bailly, Denis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accounting
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Applied ecology
Biological and medical sciences
Conservation of resources
Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife
Contingent valuation
Cost
Economics and Finance
Environmental policy
Environmental protection
Environmental Sciences
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
Humanities and Social Sciences
Measurement
Nature conservation
Nature protection
Payment
Payment card
Preference uncertainty
Preferences
Regression analysis
Uncertainty
Uncertainty calibration
Valuation
Willingness to pay
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this paper, we propose an alternative preference uncertainty measurement approach where respondents have the option to indicate their willingness to pay (WTP) for a nature protection program either as exact values or intervals from a payment card, depending on whether they are uncertain about their valuation. On the basis of their responses, we then estimate their degree of uncertainty. New within this study is that the respondent's degree of uncertainty is “revealed”, while it is “stated” in those using existing measurement methods. Three statistical models are used to explore the sources of respondent uncertainty. We also present a simple way of calculating the uncertainty adjusted mean WTP, and compare this to the one obtained from an interval regression. Our findings in terms of determinants of preference uncertainty are broadly consistent with a priori expectations. In addition, the uncertainty adjusted mean WTP is quite similar to the one derived from an interval regression. We conclude that our method is promising in accounting for preference uncertainty in WTP answers at little cost to interviewees in terms of time and cognitive effort, on the one hand, and without researcher assumptions regarding the interpretation of degrees of uncertainty reported by respondents, on the other. ► We introduce a new preference uncertainty measurement method. ► We propose a way of calculating the uncertainty adjusted mean willingness to pay. ► We explore the sources of preference uncertainty.
ISSN:0921-8009
1873-6106
DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.01.009