Willingness To Pay-WTP

Low-income households in rural areas of Ethiopia are facing catastrophic out-of-pocket health care expenditure due to lack of proper financing mechanism complemented with unexpected health related shock. However, to smooth their health care consumer spending, they need to have a cost-effective health insurance. This study analyzes' Households Willingness to Pay (WTP) for health insurance and the potential market for this cost effective health insurance products. The data used in this study was collected from rural households in East Shewa zone, Adama Woreda, which constitutes about 500 household heads respondents. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) with double bounded dichotomous choice (DBDC) elicitation method was used to estimate respondents WTP for proposed health insurance technology. The result of the study shows that households' average WTP (considering their ability to pay) is higher than their cost of public health care and self-treatment per year at a national level on average. Variables such as farm income, frequent visit to the health center, age, education, and insurance cost (premium) are significant determinants of households' willingness to pay. For the hypothetical health insurance scenario, households do have enough willingness to pay to cover cost for public health care consumption expenditure if the payment mode is planned, conducive and once per year. The study implies valuable information for policy makers and concerned stakeholders such as the Ministry of health and different private insurance provider in health care financing.

Mycotoxins contamination in food is a serious source of health risks. This paper evaluates the Italian consumers' perception of the mycotoxins' risk through their willingness to pay (WTP) for a hypothetical bottle of milk obtained by cows fed with, inter alia, maize certified for the "good practices" (GPs) that reduce this risk. Therefore, a web-based stated choice experiment (SCE) has been carried out involving a representative sample of 973 Italian consumers and the WTP has been measured using the panel data version of a Random Parameters Logit (RPL) model. Results show that Italian consumers are willing to pay a 29% average price premium for "reduced-mycotoxins" milk. This premium increases for consumers between 44 and 54 years of age, who are students, have completed tertiary education, are economically well-off and shop fairly infrequently.

Európában és a világ más részein, politikai szinten is egyre számottevőbb az igény a természet értékének beépítésére a különböző ágazatok döntéshozatalába. A környezetértékelési esetek száma egyre nő, a felhasználási területek tárháza a helyitől az országoson át a globális szintig húzódik. Kutatásunk célja, hogy az alapvetően természetvédelmi indíttatásból megvalósult élőhely-rehabilitáció szélesebben értelmezett eredményeiről, társadalmi hatásairól további információhoz jussunk. A kinyilvánított preferenciákból becsült érték meghatározásának segítségével jelen esettanulmányban a természeti tőke monetáris értékelésére szolgáló módszerrel egy konkrét, hazai mintaterület értékelésére vállalkoztunk a Szabadság- szigeti mellékág revitalizációs program esetében.

Mozambique eyecare project carried out in June 2013 to estimate the socio-economic benefit of an Optometry Programme by calculating the benefits of addressing refractive error in terms of productivity gained as a result of the intervention.

In this study, a survey of two hundred and fifty-five (255) farmers, sampled from the Akuapim South
District in the Eastern Region and the South Tongu District in the Volta Region of Ghana was
undertaken to determine their willingness to adopt and pay for solar drying technology for
drying food. Using descriptive statistics, farmers’ awareness, willingness to adopt and willingness to
pay for solar drying technology were analyzed. A Logit model analysis was employed in identifying
factors influencing farmers’ willingness to adopt the technology. The empirical results reveal a low
level of awareness of the solar drying technology (27%) among the farmers. However majority (94.5%)
were willing to adopt the technology and (88.2%) willing to pay for the technology. The modal amount
farmers were willing to pay was GH¢100.00 and the highest amount GH¢1000.00. The modal amount
of GH¢100.00 ($66.00) can produce a 4sq meter simple box type solar dryer that has a drying capacity
of 50kg per sq meter, which guarantees the farmers shorter drying time and lower final moisture
content. The study also found incentive provision, total monthly income of farmers and space to
accommodate a solar dryer as the factors influencing farmers’ willingness to adopt the solar drying
technology. In this respect, sensitization campaigns should be intensified to create more awareness of
the solar drying technology among small holder farmers. In doing so, farmers should be introduced to
varied designs and varied costs of the technology in order for them to make their own choice. Solar
dried food products should be differentiated and considered for higher prices, ready market and export
to motivate farmers to adopt the technology. Further, there is the need for the provision of space (land)
by the District Assemblies in the various communities where these farmers can conveniently place their
solar dryers for the purpose of drying the food products. Finally, since income is a factor that
significantly influences farmers’ adoption of the technology, it is imperative that the government
provides the solar drying equipments at vantage points in the communities that farmers could use to dry
their products, even if at an affordable fee.

Over the past two decade, multi-level marketing (MLM) has played an important role in Thailand direct sale market, especially skin-care and cosmetic products. Question concerning on the factors that motivate and drive the direct sale agents in multi-level marketing to become active and successful member in their organization. This study focuses on four major effective factors of MLM business, including, product quality, sale commission, support system, and training program. Survey data from MLM members in skin-care and cosmetic products of 400 respondents is analyzed by using linear regression and Ordered Probit models. The results indicate that sale commission and support system are only two factors that have significant influence on driving MLM members to actively perform and become successful in MLM sale agents. Additionally, Thai government agents are more likely join the MLM business and become successful as sale agents. The findings reveal that MLM companies in skincare and cosmetic products can successfully motivate their sale agents by enhancing their sale commission mechanism and improving their support system.

The aim of the present research thesis is the emersion of the vernacular architecture
discrete role in the existing pattern of development in Metsovo region, while vernacular
architecture is considering as an element of cultural heritage to be preserved.
The purpose of the research is to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of Metsovo
residents in order to preserve the vernacular architecture and more particularly to clarify the
residents opinion and attitude towards the traditional aspects of the village.
As a consequence, this paper aims to assess the value of the vernacular architecture of
the settlement, under the prism of the environmental economy’s analytical techniques (Coller
& Harrison, 1995; Cropper και Oates 1992; Field, 1994; Navrud & Pruckner, 1997Tietenberg,
1992; Τurner et al., 1994), according to the prospects, options and choices of the habitants.
In order to archive this purpose, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is used, making
the scenario of founding a management authority for the protection of the vernacular
architecture. According to this scenario the willingness to pay as well as the amounts to be
payed by the residents to support his work are investigated.
Thus, 263 questionnaires were collected by simple random sampling of households in
Metsovo during the period June-July 2009; where -among other questions- the residents
were asked to express their general opinion and points of view concerning the traditional
character of the village.
The thesis, consists of 4 main chapters, covering the following topics:
• Chapter 1: The architecture of the vernacular settlements: In this chapter, some
general information on the concept of vernacular architecture, the bioclimatic
characteristics, the national legislation about vernacular settlements protection
and the necessity of maintenance are discussed. Also, the characteristics of the
vernacular architecture of Metsovo, the legislation and the existing restrictions in
the constructing field are mentioned. Finally, the additional costs of constructing a
traditional house in Metsovo against a conventional one are analyzed.
• Chapter 2: Economic Valuation of Environmental Goods: In this chapter, the
writer attempts to introduce the field of the environmental economics and the
Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), using examples from the international
literature regarding the application of this method for the valuation of cultural
goods.
Chapter 3: Methodological Research Framework: The research parameters
considered as components of the broader methodological framework design and
implementation are analyzed and presented in this chapter. Thus, it refers to the
research object, purpose and objective, the assumptions, the reference
population with the corresponding sample of respondents, and in particular it
presents the questionnaire used as a tool for data collection analysis.
• Chapter 4: Presentation of Results and Conclusions: The last chapter of the
present thesis is dedicated to the presentation of the details of the statistical
analysis and processing of research data with SPSS. Also, In this chapter the
conclusions of the research are formulated in this chapter.
According to the research findings, a typical family in Metsovo consists of 4 members
with annual income of all adult members from 17.500 € to 26.500 € and wells in 20 to 30
years old houses. The profile of the interviewed can be described as an 30 to 40 years old,
secondary educated, self-employed person.
The average resident believes that it is important to protect the traditional Greek
architecture an element of cultural heritage, as well as that there is little evidence of
deterioration in Metsovo, mainly due to new buildings which do not resemble to the
traditional patterns. In the majority, the inhabitants consider that the legislation for the
settlement preservation is effective (50%), but also a considerable percentage (46%) would
prefer a stricter law to be existed, even if this would lead to extra costs for them. However,
the percentage of the construction costs of a traditional house in Metsovo is overestimated
up to 5 times compared to the actual ones. Nevertheless, the average resident is willing to
use stone and wood as building materials for aesthetic or traditional reasons, even if this is
not imposed by the law.
Additionally, the vast majority of households considers that the maintenance of the
traditional character of the village results to economic benefits for the residents, so that the
47% of them are willing to pay an average amount of 200 € to support the actions of an
hypothetical management authority for the preservation of the vernacular architecture.
The total value of the traditional architecture of the settlement was estimated to 92.000
€ using the CVM method. This value is probably higher, taking into account the high rate of
"protest" denials.
Finally, according to the Multiple Regression Linear model which was applied for the
calculation of the financial contribution amount, is demonstrated that this amount increases with the age of the interviewee while the older is the home in which he stays, the smaller is
the amount of the notional financial contribution to the institution. Moreover, the results of
the Binary Logistic Regression model application shows that it is more likely for a person who
considers the preservation of the Greek vernacular architecture as an important issue to
have positive attitude towards aiding financially a management authority or organization for
this purpose.

River flow forecasting Artificial neural network Adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system Support vector machine s u m m a r y Data driven models are very useful for river flow forecasting when the underlying physical relationships are not fully understand, but it is not clear whether these data driven models still have a good performance in the small river basin of semiarid mountain regions where have complicated topography. In this study, the potential of three different data driven methods, artificial neural network (ANN), adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and support vector machine (SVM) were used for forecasting river flow in the semiarid mountain region, northwestern China. The models analyzed different combinations of antecedent river flow values and the appropriate input vector has been selected based on the analysis of residuals. The performance of the ANN, ANFIS and SVM models in training and validation sets are compared with the observed data. The model which consists of three antecedent values of flow has been selected as the best fit model for river flow forecasting. To get more accurate evaluation of the results of ANN, ANFIS and SVM models, the four quantitative standard statistical performance evaluation measures, the coefficient of correlation (R), root mean squared error (RMSE), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NS) and mean absolute relative error (MARE), were employed to evaluate the performances of various models developed. The results indicate that the performance obtained by ANN, ANFIS and SVM in terms of different evaluation criteria during the training and validation period does not vary substantially; the performance of the ANN, ANFIS and SVM models in river flow forecasting was satisfactory. A detailed comparison of the overall performance indicated that the SVM model performed better than ANN and ANFIS in river flow forecasting for the validation data sets. The results also suggest that ANN, ANFIS and SVM method can be successfully applied to establish river flow with complicated topography forecasting models in the semiarid mountain regions.

Riset ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis estimasi nilai Willingness To Pay (WTP) pengunjung untuk menentukan potensi harga maksimum yang bersedia dibayarkan untuk paket wisata yang ditawarkan di Umbul Ponggok, serta besarnya nilai WTP yang dibayarkan pengunjung. Penelitian ini menggunakan 100 responden pengunjung Umbul Ponggok. Penelitian ini menggunakan dua model persamaan dimana model pertama menggunakan Kesediaan Membayar sebagai variabel dependennya dan model kedua menggunakan WTP sebagai variabel dependennya. Variabel independen model pertama dan kedua yaitu Lama Kunjungan, Jenis Kelamin, Biaya Perjalanan, Umur, Pendapatan, dan Kesediaan Membayar. Hasil observasi diuji dengan model regresi ordinary least square. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa terdapat 64 responden dari 100 yang menyatakan bersedia membayar dengan nilai rata-rata WTP responden untuk paket wisata di Umbul Ponggok sebesar Rp 60.150,00. Variabel yang berpengaruh secara signifikan terhadap Kesediaan Membayar adalah Biaya Perjalanan dan Jenis Kelamin. Sedangkan variabel yang berpengaruh secara signifikan terhadap nilai WTP adalah Pendapatan dan Biaya Perjalanan.

Revenue management and dynamic pricing are concepts that have immense possibilities for application in the energy sector. Both can be considered as demand-side management tools that can facilitate the offering of different prices at different demand levels. This paper studies literature on various topics related to the dynamic pricing of electricity and lists future research avenues in pricing policies, consumers' willingness to pay and market segmentation in this field. Demand and price forecasting play an important role in determining prices and scheduling load in dynamic pricing environments. This allows different forms of dynamic pricing policies to different markets and customers depending on customers' willingness to pay. Consumers' willingness to pay for electricity services is also necessary in setting price limits depending on the demand and demand response curve. Market segmentation can enhance the effects of such pricing schemes. Appropriate scheduling of electrical load enhances the consumer response to dynamic tariffs.

There exists a significant gap on the issue of Willingness to Pay (WTP) studies of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), particularly those located in the South West Indian Ocean basin. Mauritius, which is a very popular tourist destination, provides no exception as regards to such gap. Hence, this paper intends to at least extend the literature and address the issue of WTP by exclusively focusing on a monetary valuation of the recreational activity of tourists in Mauritius within a context of sustainable development. The travel cost technique is applied for this purpose and our findings show that there is a potential for tourists to pay more than what they currently pay to visit the island. Hence, this offers local authorities with better scope for sustainable tourism by potentially extracting the corresponding Marginal WTP (MWTP) to conserve the fragile natural assets of this small island economy while safeguarding the coastal and marine ecosystems. Moreover, computation of the MWTP based on data from 21 different countries reveals that each tourist may be willing to pay $38 that could be used to protect tourism-based assets. This figure represents 5% over and above what a tourist actually pays on average to visit the island. Altogether, the paper makes a case for the government to extract this amount with the possibility of introducing an ecological tax. However, the latter must be worked out in such a manner to achieve the most effective conservation outcomes albeit with least distortionary impacts.

Food production processes have a number of critical control points that influence the quality assurance in production processes. In Ghana, foodborne illnesses reported in hospitals is about 420,000 per year, with an annual death rate estimated at 65,000 costing $ 69 million to the Ghanaian economy. This
research therefore assessed the knowledge level of food safety and consumer perception for irradiated food in the greater Accra region. The combination of data obtained from workshops and interviews gave overview of food safety and consumer perception to irradiated food products. Data were analysed with SPSS and to map the mental models of those involved in the workshop, a Vensim software program was used. The survey report showed that even though respondents were told of the sterility assurance level of food irradiation, about 80 percent of them rejected irradiation processing until
educated. All respondents have experiences food borne illness before. Majority of the interviewed respondents (85%) express some degree of concern over the safety of the food supply and some are willing to pay 10% premium for irradiated foods. The mental model revealed that demand for safer convenient food emphasised the need for refining food policy and increasing critical control point’s inspection by the standard authorities. This will lead to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and safer
foods than it would otherwise be and hence promote public health. It is suggested that there is a need to refine food safety policy to include irradiation processing, which can respond to both domestic and global challenges.

Abstract in Deutsch

Aufgrund zunehmender Internationalisierung wird es immer wichtiger zu wissen, welche Vorstellungen Verbraucher mit supranationalen Einheiten wie der Europäischen Union assoziieren. Basierend auf einem riesigen Bestand an Literatur zu Auswirkungen des Herkunftslandes auf das Entscheidungsverhalten von Konsumenten, wird in dieser Arbeit der Einfluss Regionaler Herkunftsbezeichnungen, in der Form einer Ursprungskennzeichnung "Hergestellt in der EU", auf die individuelle Zahlungsbereitschaft von Verbrauchern untersucht. Diese Diplomarbeit versucht eine Brücke zwischen Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften zu schlagen, in dem die möglichen Folgen einer Einführung der vorgeschlagenen europäischen Produktkennzeichnung aus einer Marketing-Perspektive beleuchtet werden. Die Forschung zielt insbesondere auf Unterschiede in der individuellen Zahlungsbereitschaft von Konsumenten im Hinblick auf länderspezifische Produktkennzeichnungen mit dem Hinweis: "Hergestellt in Belgien" und " Hergestellt in Polen", sowie Regionaler Herkunftskennzeichnung in Form einer „Hergestellt in der EU“ Angabe. Das Konzept einer gemeinsamen europäischen Identität wird in einem Marketing Kontext bearbeitet. Die Arbeit befasst sich mit den emotionalen und symbolischen Assoziationen der Herkunft eines Produkts. In dem Bemühen, die Einflussfaktoren auf die vom Verbraucher manifestierte Zahlungsbereitschaft zu erforschen, werden länderbezogenen, konsumentenbezogenen und produktbezogenen Moderatoren untersucht. Die Zahlungsbereitschaft wird hierbei anhand einer Lotterie nach Becker/DeGroot/Marschak (BDM) ermittelt. Die Ergebnisse der in Spanien durchgeführten Forschung, zeigen einen signifikanten Einfluss des Images eines Landes, der ermittelten Europäische Identität und der Kundenpräferenz auf die Zahlungsbereitschaft für Produkte mit Regionaler Kennzeichnung. Die Ergebnisse forcieren daher interdisziplinäre Forschung im Bezug auf das Entstehen einer europäischen Identität und der Einführung Regionaler Herkunftsbezeichnungen.
Schlagwörter in Deutsch

Herkunftslandbezeichnung / Regionale Herkunftsbezeichnung / Made in the EU / Individuelle Zahlungsbereitschaft / BDM
Abstract in Englisch

Internationalization enhances the importance to know how consumers react to the notion of a supra-national concept like ‘Europe’ and to discover the perception of labels associated with the EU. Based on a vast existing body of literature on the subject of country-of-origin (COO) effects the research at hand investigates the price related consequences of a Regional Designation in the form of a ‘Made in the EU’ origin mark (OM). This thesis bridges a gap between COO research and European social studies with a marketing perspective, analysing the proposed European labelling practice. The research specifically aims to examine differences in consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for products with certain COO cues, e.g. ‘Made in Belgium’, and ‘Made in Poland’ as opposed to products with Regional Designation in the form of ‘Made in the EU’ labels. In an effort to focus on the consumers’ manifested construction of Europe this paper addresses the emotional and symbolic connotations related to a product’s origin by examining the country-related, consumer-related and product-related factors of influence on WTP. European Identity (EID) is introduced in the context of international marketing. The thesis at hand puts a price tag on EID in combining COO research with reliable measurements of WTP in a “point-of-purchase” situation. The Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism is used to elicit true willingness to pay. The analyses of the research conducted in Spain show significant influence of Country Image, European Identity and Consumer Preference on WTP for products with Regional Designation. The results therefore put emphasis on further research across different disciplines on the formation of European Identity and the implications of Regional Designation.
Schlagwörter in Englisch

Country-of-Origin / Regional Designation / Made in the EU / Willingness to Pay / BDM

Seafood products are important sources of protein and components of a healthy and sustainable diet. Understanding consumers' preferences for fish products is crucial for increasing fish consumption. This article reports the consumer preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for different fish species and attributes on representative samples in five European countries (n = 2509): France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. Consumer choices were investigated for fresh fish in a retail market under hypothetical situations arranged by a labelled choice experiment conducted for seven fish species: Cod, herring, seabass, seabream, salmon, trout, and pangasius. The results show the highest premiums for wild-caught fish than farm-raised alternatives. Ready-to-cook products are generally preferred to whole fish, whereas fish fillet preference is more species-specific. The results show positive premiums for a sustainability label and nutrition and health claims, with high heterogeneity across countries and species. With consumers' preferences and WTP being largely country-and fish-dependent, businesses (fish companies, retailers, and others) should consider the specific market context and adapt their labelling strategies accordingly. Public authorities campaigns should inform consumers about the tangible benefits related with health and environmental labels.

This paper examines an explanatory policy in the management of drinking water in Tunisia. Indeed, the price variable, while is considered, in general way, as a confident indicator in the regulation of drinking water consumption, it seems to be insufficient since the management of drinking water is influenced by other set of variables such as: the revenue level of households, the consumption of bottled water, the alternative sources, the household size and, above all, the quality variable, which presents an enormous variability inter- and intra-regions. Through our study, we have shown, that the variation in willingness to pay (WTP) is essentially due to psychological and subjective consideration (the degree of importance of these variables in the scale of preferences of consumers).

"The research studied the factors that affect consumers’ behavioural intention towards apparel stores. Three different aspects of behavioural intention were examined: consumers’ purchase intention (PI), willingness to pay more (WPAY), and brand recommendation (RECM). Specifically the authors propose a model in which consumer satisfaction with the store brand mediates the effects of attitude towards sales personnel and the convenience of the store’s payment conditions or options on PI, WPAY, and RECM. The relationships hypothesized in the model were tested using two apparel store brands familiar to consumers in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. All findings were in favour of the model proposed for both apparel store brands studied, which were either a sample of men or women.

Keywords: satisfaction, willingness to pay more, purchase intention, recommendation, payment conditions, attitude towards sales personnel."

This paper examines public perceptions towards qualitative and quantitative attributes of a solid waste management (SWM) system in terms of willingness-to-pay (WTP) values. A stated choice (SC) survey instrument was designed and data was collected from residents in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) of West Bengal, India. Respondents were approached randomly and face-to-face interviews were carried out. The behavioural data collected from residents are analysed by developing a standard multinomial logit (MNL) model and model coefficients are used for calculating the WTP values. Using the WTP values, the total disutility of SWM system is expressed in the form of generalised cost (GC). Technology Bombay with specialisation in transportation engineering. He has published more than 80 technical papers and case studies in various journals and proceedings of conferences, seminars and workshops on several topics such as traffic congestion, public transportation system, traffic and parking management, travel behaviour analysis, transport policy, etc. He has carried out several sponsored research and consultancy projects in the area of traffic and transportation system.

The Internet has stimulated a cross-shift in the business model across the media sector. Traditional funding sources have been reduced by the voracious pulse for free access and non-professional actors have swarmed over to compete with traditional channels of information. This paper attempts to analyze willingness-to-pay for investigative journalism contents from a general audience's point of view, in order to find consumption patterns that could orientate professionals in this crisis. To achieve such an aim, a survey was conducted to examine the paying habits of Madrid's population using a multistage technique, which was designed following the indexes provided by the Municipal Register of the town. The results, based on three payment channels –micro-payment, donation and annual subscription– and three distribution channels – corporate media, non-corporate media and freelance journalists– confirm the interest of the audience for investigative reporting findings but also their unwillingness to pay for its scoops or exposés.

This chapter explores the rather contentious issue of introducing entry fees to national parks and nature reserves. There has been much discussion about the introduction of charges to enter national parks during the past few decades. Many strong arguments have been put forward for and against the introduction of such charges. This chapter examines charges and fees for entry to national parks and visitors' attitudes to such charges with special reference to Australia. Some countries such as Australia charge low entry fees to enter national parks and nature reserves and in some states such as Queensland there are no charges or fees, except in a few cases. However, there is considerable debate as to whether national parks should start charging or increase entry fees to supplement funding from government so that more conservation work can be undertaken, wildlife habitats can be improved, visitor facilities enhanced and more land brought under the umbrella of 'protected area'. As it stands, national parks and protected areas are short of funding and, therefore, are unable to undertake most of the above-mentioned activities. Due to these funding constraints, it is likely that many countries will examine the issue of charging entry fees seriously while some countries have already begun to implement such user fees. The purpose of this chapter is not to determine an optimal price for visitors or to examine the welfare effects of such a price. Such an exercise is beyond the scope of this work. This chapter examines the relevant published literature on the merits and de-merits of charging entry fees to national parks. Furthermore, we use survey data to examine visitor attitudes to national park entry fees and their willingness to pay (WTP) to enter national parks and under what circumstances they would do so. For this purpose we use the results from a field survey conducted in Lamington National Park (LNP), located in Queensland. It is a part of the World Heritage-listed Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. In the first question, visitors are asked whether they would be willing to pay to visit the parks and in the second question they are asked whether they would be more willing to pay if the money collected were invested in the park to improve visitor facilities and conservation work. We also determine which groups (foreign, Australian or state) are the most likely and unlikely to be willing to pay to enter

The proposed study aims to segment consumers based on a sustainable approach to the consumption of food. The shift in consumers’ attitudes towards more balanced food consumption can be one of the sustainability drivers for entire food chains and may result in more sustained energy usage in the whole food chain and implementation of farm to fork strategy to the practice. We considered consumers’ attitudes as a multidimensional construct. Under this assumption, we asked respondents a series of questions related to the cognitive, behavioral, and affective components of an attitude. Data were collected from a market survey run among 433 consumers. We identified three consumer segments. The “Doers” segment exhibits sustainable behavior to a greater extent than the others. At the same time, they have less knowledge about the concept of food sustainability while the affective dimension was developed on an average level. The “Conscious” segment had well-developed cognitive and affective dim...

This paper explores the way in which the stated willingness to pay for the conservation of Asian elephants in Sri Lanka varies with hypothetical variations in their abundance.  To do that, it relies on results from a sample of residents of Colombo.  The willingness to pay function is found to be unusual.  It increases at an increasing rate for hypothetical reductions in the elephant population compared to its current level (a level that makes the Asian elephant endangered) and also increases at a decreasing rate for increases in this population from its current level.  Rational explanations are given for this relationship.  The relationship is, however, at odds with relationships suggested in some of the literature for total economic value as a function of the abundance of a wildlife species.  It is suggested that willingness to pay for conservation of a species rationally includes a strategic element and may not always measure the total economic value of a species.  Nevertheless, willingness to pay is still policy relevant in such cases.

We conducted a multi-country study to estimate the perceived economic values of traffic-related air pollution
and noise health risks within the framework of a large European project. We used contingent valuation as a
method to assess the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for both types of pollutants simultaneously. We asked respondents
how much they would be willing to pay annually to avoid certain health risks from specific pollutants.
Three sets of vignettes with different levels of information were provided prior to the WTP questions. These vignettes
described qualitative general health risks, a quantitative single health risk related to a pollutant, and a
quantitative scenario of combined health risks related to a pollutant. The mean WTP estimates to avoid roadtraffic
air pollution effects for the three vignettes were: €130 per person per year (pp/y) for general health
risks, €80 pp/y for a half year shorter in life expectancy, and €330 pp/y to a 50% decrease in road-traffic air pollution.
Their medians were €40 pp/y, €10 pp/y and €50 pp/y, respectively. The mean WTP estimates to avoid
road-traffic noise effects for the three vignettes were: €90 pp/y for general health risks, €100 pp/y for a 13% increase
in severe annoyance, and €320 pp/y for a combined-risk scenario related to an increase of a noise level
from 50 dB to 65 dB. Their medians were €20 pp/y, €20 pp/y and €50 pp/y, respectively. Risk perceptions and
attitudes aswell as environmental and pollutant concerns significantly affectedWTP estimates. The observed differences
in crude WTP estimates between countries changed considerably when perception-related variables
were included in theWTP regression models. For this reason, great care should be takenwhen performing benefit
transfer from studies in one country to another.

This present paper seeks to profile the views and characteristics of travelers to Koh Phi Phi, an island in south western Thailand. The island is facing many issues of environmental and social degradation as a result of tourism over-development. The methodology employed in this paper uses individual survey questionnaires of visitors to determine their attitudes towards sustainability in the destination and their potential willingness to pay to preserve it for the future. The study concludes that travelers are prepared to take responsibility and potentially pay to help prevent further degradation of the island. The majority of visitors believe tourists should be a key stakeholder in the preservation and protection and are prepared to pay an additional tax to protect the environment in the destination. It is also noteworthy that visitors’ willingness to pay for environmental improvements varied only marginally based on travelers’ income levels, although the average amount that travelers were willing to pay increased for those with higher income. This research may offer a useful contribution to this field as it will influence key motivation factors for visiting destinations, and if consumers would play a role in helping to sustain a destination.

Many Queenslanders affected by the severe flood events in 2011 failed to recover their losses. Arrangements for flood insurance are under federal reviews in response to mounting public pressures. Against this backdrop, a household survey was conducted to solicit resident preference. The majority of residents interviewed favoured optional purchase of flood insurance. Non-insurance was associated with expectations for liberal assistance, indicating the possibility of ‘moral hazard’. Willingness to pay for flood insurance was related to social influence. The non-insured household would spend more if they expected positive responses from people around. Attempts to reduce non-insurance should address aspects of social influences.

Food production processes have a number of critical control points that influence the quality assurance in production processes. In Ghana, foodborne illnesses reported in hospitals is about 420,000 per year, with an annual death rate estimated at 65,000 costing $ 69 million to the Ghanaian economy. This research therefore assessed the knowledge level of food safety and consumer perception for irradiated food in the greater Accra region. The combination of data obtained from workshops and interviews gave overview of food safety and consumer perception to irradiated food products. Data were analysed with SPSS and to map the mental models of those involved in the workshop, a Vensim software program was used. The survey report showed that even though respondents were told of the sterility assurance level of food irradiation, about 80 percent of them rejected irradiation processing until educated. All respondents have experiences food borne illness before. Majority of the interviewed res...

This case study concentrates on the extent of knowledge of members of the Australian public of Australia’s tropical bird species and their willingness to pay for their conservation.  In order to place this issue in context, it first provides background information on the status of Australian bird species, focusing attention on species that occur in tropical Australia.  Then, using survey results, this study considers the hypothesis that the public’s relative support for the conservation of different bird species depends on its comparative knowledge of their existence and status.  Based on experimental results from a sample of residents of Brisbane, Queensland (Australia), it is found that their knowledge of bird species that occur exclusively in the Australian tropics (including tropical Queensland) is very poor compared to those that also occur in the Brisbane area and are relatively common. Experimental results indicate that when respondents in the sample had an option to allocate $1,000 between ten bird species listed in the survey, it resulted in a greater allocation of funds to the better known and more common species than when they were provided with balanced information about all the selected species. With balanced information the average allocation to bird species confined mostly to the Australian tropics, particularly those threatened or endangered, increased. The general consequences of this for policies for the conservation of birds are discussed.

Mycotoxins contamination in food is a serious source of health risks. This paper evaluates the Italian consumers’ perception of the mycotoxins’ risk through their willingness to pay (WTP) for a hypothetical bottle of milk obtained by cows fed with, inter alia, maize certified for the “good practices” (GPs) that reduce this risk. Therefore, a web-based stated choice experiment (SCE) has been carried out involving a representative sample of 973 Italian consumers and the WTP has been measured using the panel data version of a Random Parameters Logit (RPL) model. Results show that Italian consumers are willing to pay a 29% average price premium for “reduced-mycotoxins” milk. This premium increases for consumers between 44 and 54 years of age, who are students, have completed tertiary education, are economically well-off and shop fairly infrequently.

Using a dataset with transport choices of the same set of individuals (college students from University of La Laguna), we built a novel three waves panel data around a tramline implementation in the Santa Cruz-La Laguna corridor in Tenerife, Spain. The first two waves were conducted in 2007, just before the tram implementation. They collect information about Revealed Preferences (RP) of actual transport mode choices (car, bus and walk) and about Stated Preferences (SP) in a simulated scenario considering a hypothetical binary choice between the tram and the transport mode currently chosen by the students. The third wave gathers information about RP in 2009, two years after the tram started operating. With this information, we estimate several multinomial logit models and panel mixed logit models with error components. The aim of this paper is to evaluate how the estimation of the Values of Travel Time Savings (VTTS) changes when comparing the results obtained with models that only consider information before or after the tram implementation with that obtained with a panel data approach using the three waves simultaneously (RP/SP in 2007 and RP in 2009). We obtain a better statistical fit to data and, according to our study context, more reasonable VTTS using a panel data approach combining before and after information and both revealed and stated preferences. Our results suggest that when a new transport mode is implemented, the VTTS obtained with models than only consider prior or later periods of time can be underestimated and hence lead to wrong valuations of the benefits associated with the new alternative, even when stated preferences are used to anticipate the change in the transport system.

The utilisation of benefit cost approach for investment appraisal requires a price that can be used in comparing economic benefits of projected consumption growth with the cost of incremental supply. A pricing approach that ensures expansion of capacity and consumption is at the correct level, places the burden on the consumer to reveal willingness to pay and hence value of water consumed. If the price paid is at least equal to the cost of providing additional supplies, investment in additional capacity is warranted. If not, existing capacity should be rationed. This forward-looking approach to pricing can provide the test for project justification in urban water supply.

This paper describes a study that was carried out to estimate WTP for urban water supply. The study looked at three types of consumers typically found in urban areas in developing countries. Those who receive water through: existing connections; stand posts; and water wells. To estimate WTP, two forecasting techniques are applied, namely, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Multiple Regression (MR). The former being a state-of-the-art technique while the latter a conventional one. A comparative study is carried out to determine whether the estimate for WTP with the application of the ANN technique can produce better predictions than with the MR method. A comparison is made between the ANN and MR models, in terms of their forecasting accuracy, by using a relative measure known as the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The forecasting error of the best ANN model is found to be about half of that derived from the best MR model. From the MR models, it is seen that the significant variables that determine WTP, differ depending on the type of consumer, and from those variables that are typically considered as significant for WTP by urban consumers in developed countries.

В статье рассмотрены проблемы, затрудняющие практическое использование оценок экономии времени пассажиров при выработке транспортной политики; предложен способ определения стоимости минуты экономии методом готовности платить (willingness to pay (WTP) approach), приведены оценки стоимости минуты экономии времени для пассажиров пригородных поездов в московском транспортном узле

I provide an overview of existing approaches to estimate value of passenger time savings, identify problems that impede the practical use of passenger time savings, suggest a method for determining the cost of a minute of savings using the “willingness to pay (WTP) approach”, and calculate the cost of free time for passengers of suburban electric of the Moscow agglomeration.

The present study was aimed to assess the effect of information about organic production on beef liking and consumer willingness to pay. Mean scores of perceived liking were higher for organic beef (OB) as compared to conventional beef (CB). Expected liking scores were higher for OB than for CB. For OB the expected liking was significantly higher than the perceived liking expressed in blind conditions (negative disconfirmation), whereas for CB no difference was observed. Consumers completely assimilated their liking for OB in the direction of expectations. Consumers showed a willingness to pay for OB higher than the suggested price (P < 0.001), the latter corresponding to the local commercial value for organic beef. We conclude that the information about organic farming can be a major determinant of beef liking, thus providing a potential tool for meat differentiation to traditional farms.

This paper reports the results of an experiment involving a sample of 204 members of the public who were assessed on three occasions about their willingness to pay for the conservation of the mahogany glider. They were asked this question prior to information being provided to them about the glider and other focal wildlife species; after such information was provided, and finally after participants had had an opportunity to see live specimens of this glider. The mean willingness to pay of the relevant samples are compared and found to show significant variations. Theories are considered that help explain the dynamics of these variations. Serious concerns are raised about the capacity of information provision to reveal ‘true’ contingent valuations of public goods.

In this paper, we analyse the financial viability and economic sustainability implications of government programs for the development of renewable energy sources, explicitly considering that consumers take environmental issues into account. We envisage a broad policy strategy for the future, which we label the “World Sustainable Scenario”, and we quantify the inter-temporal resource requirement in terms of investment necessary to achieve it. We perform an empirical meta-analysis to quantify the willingness to pay for green electricity worldwide. Subsequently, we compare the amount of resources required according to policy programs and the populations’ willingness to sacrifice current resources for future benefits (i.e., willingness to finance future investments) to assess the plausibility of current policies. The main empirical findings show that the population’s attitude toward green electricity will support, on average, 50% of the total investment required. We conclude that this is a positive result, which will make possible the success of the renewable energy sources development policy.

Background: The health impacts from traffic-related pollutants bring costs to society, which are often not
reflected in market prices for transportation. We set out to simultaneously assess the willingness-to-pay (WTP)
for traffic-related air pollution and noise effect on health, using a single measurement instrument and approach.
We investigated the proportion and determinants of “protest vote/PV responses (people who were against
valuing their health in terms of money)” and “don’t know”/DK answers, and explored the effect of DK on the
WTP distributions.
Methods: Within the framework of the EU-funded project INTARESE, we asked over 5,200 respondents in five
European countries to state their WTP to avoid health effects from road traffic-related air pollution and noise in
an open-ended web-based questionnaire. Determinants of PV and DK were studied by logistic regression using
variables concerning socio-demographics, income, health and environmental concern, and risk perception.
Results: About 10% of the respondents indicated a PV response and between 47-56% of respondents gave DK
responses. About one-third of PV respondents thought that costs should be included in transportation prices,
i.e. the polluter should pay. Logistic regression analyses showed associations of PV and DK with several factors.
In addition to social-demographic, economic and health factors known to affect WTP, environmental concern,
awareness of health effects, respondent’s ability to relax in polluted places, and their view on the government’s
role to reduce pollution and on policy to improve wellbeing, also affected the PV and DK response. An exploratory
weighting and imputation exercise did not show substantial effects of DK on the WTP distribution.
Conclusions: With a proportion of about 50%, DK answers may be a more relevant issue affecting WTP than PV’s. The
likelihood to give PV and DK response were influenced by socio-demographic, economic and health factors, as well as
environmental concerns and appreciation of environmental conditions and policies. In contested policy issues where
actual policy may be based on WTP studies, PV and DK answers may indeed affect the outcome of the WTP study.
PV and DK answers and their determinants therefore deserve further study in CV studies on environmental health effects.

This research examines the role of risk perceptions on the success likelihood of brand extensions.
Prior research has focused on two main factors as driving the brand extension
success: brand loyalty and the perceived fit between the brand and extension product.
However, the role of purchasing risk perceptions (physical, financial, psychological, etc.)
in driving the brand extension success has not been discussed adequately in the literature.
This study posits that (1) risk perceptions explain substantial incremental variance (in addition
to those explained by brand loyalty and perceived fit of the extension) in consumers’
willingness to purchase (WTP) measures and (2) risk perceptions also moderate the effects
of brand loyalty and perceived fit on WTP. These suggestions were tested separately for
children’s’ products and parents’ products. The results indicate that the effects of the perceived
fit on WTP are higher in high risk situations than those in low risk situations only
when parents purchase an extension product for the use of their children.

Keywords: risk perceptions, brand extension, brand loyalty, perceived fit, willingness to
purchase.