IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v189y2021ics0921800921002007.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Have environmental preferences and willingness to pay remained stable before and during the global Covid-19 shock?

Author

Listed:
  • Hynes, Stephen
  • Armstrong, Claire W.
  • Xuan, Bui Bich
  • Ankamah-Yeboah, Isaac
  • Simpson, Katherine
  • Tinch, Robert
  • Ressurreição, Adriana

Abstract

This study tests the stability of environmental preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) values using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) across three countries pre and post the peak of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. A DCE examining the public's preferences for alternative environmental management plans on the high seas, in the area of the Flemish Cap, was carried out in Canada, Scotland and Norway in late 2019 and was rerun in early May 2020 shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic had officially peaked in the three countries. The same choice set sequence is tested across the two periods, using different but nationally representative samples in each case. Entropy balancing, a multivariate reweighting method, is used to achieve covariate balance between the pre and post Covid samples in the analysis. The results suggest that both preferences and WTP remain relatively stable in the face of a major public health crisis and economic upheaval.

Suggested Citation

  • Hynes, Stephen & Armstrong, Claire W. & Xuan, Bui Bich & Ankamah-Yeboah, Isaac & Simpson, Katherine & Tinch, Robert & Ressurreição, Adriana, 2021. "Have environmental preferences and willingness to pay remained stable before and during the global Covid-19 shock?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:189:y:2021:i:c:s0921800921002007
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107142
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921002007
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107142?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lew, Daniel K. & Wallmo, Kristy, 2017. "Temporal stability of stated preferences for endangered species protection from choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 87-97.
    2. John C. Whitehead & Thomas J. Hoban, 1999. "Testing for Temporal Reliability in Contingent Valuation with Time for Changes in Factors Affecting Demand," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 75(3), pages 453-465.
    3. K. McConnell* & I. Strand & Sebastián Valdés, 1998. "Testing Temporal Reliability and Carry-over Effect: The Role of Correlated Responses in Test-retest Reliability Studies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(3), pages 357-374, October.
    4. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    5. O'Hara, Sabine & Toussaint, Etienne C., 2021. "Food access in crisis: Food security and COVID-19," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    6. Schaafsma, Marije & Brouwer, Roy & Liekens, Inge & De Nocker, Leo, 2014. "Temporal stability of preferences and willingness to pay for natural areas in choice experiments: A test–retest," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 243-260.
    7. Anastasio J. Villanueva & Klaus Glenk & Macario Rodríguez-Entrena, 2017. "Protest Responses and Willingness to Accept: Ecosystem Services Providers’ Preferences towards Incentive-Based Schemes," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 801-821, September.
    8. Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman, 1991. "Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1039-1061.
    9. Erik Meijer & Jan Rouwendal, 2006. "Measuring welfare effects in models with random coefficients," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 227-244, March.
    10. Hainmueller, Jens & Xu, Yiqing, 2013. "ebalance: A Stata Package for Entropy Balancing," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 54(i07).
    11. Caterina Lucarelli & Camilla Mazzoli & Sabrina Severini, 2020. "Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Beliefs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-17, December.
    12. Richard T. Carson & W. Michael Hanemann, & Raymond J. Kopp & Jon A. Krosnick & Robert C. Mitchell & Stanley Presser & Paul A. Rudd & V. Kerry Smith & Michael Conaway & Kerry Martin, 1997. "Temporal Reliability of Estimates from Contingent Valuation," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 73(2), pages 151-163.
    13. John B. Loomis, 1989. "Test-Retest Reliability of the Contingent Valuation Method: A Comparison of General Population and Visitor Responses," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 71(1), pages 76-84.
    14. Dieter Helm, 2020. "The Environmental Impacts of the Coronavirus," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 76(1), pages 21-38, May.
    15. Scarpa, R. & Thiene, M. & Train, K., 2008. "Appendix to Utility in WTP space: a tool to address confounding random scale effects in destination choice to the Alps," American Journal of Agricultural Economics APPENDICES, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(4), pages 1-9, January.
    16. Hynes, Stephen & Ghermandi, Andrea & Norton, Daniel & Williams, Heidi, 2018. "Marine recreational ecosystem service value estimation: A meta-analysis with cultural considerations," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PC), pages 410-419.
    17. Daniel McFadden & Kenneth Train, 2000. "Mixed MNL models for discrete response," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(5), pages 447-470.
    18. David Hensher & William Greene, 2003. "The Mixed Logit model: The state of practice," Transportation, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 133-176, May.
    19. Brouwer, Roy, 2006. "Do stated preference methods stand the test of time? A test of the stability of contingent values and models for health risks when facing an extreme event," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 399-406, December.
    20. Czajkowski, Mikołaj & Barczak, Anna & Budziński, Wiktor & Giergiczny, Marek & Hanley, Nick, 2016. "Preference and WTP stability for public forest management," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 11-22.
    21. Robert J. Johnston & Daniel Jarvis & Kristy Wallmo & Daniel K. Lew, 2015. "Multiscale Spatial Pattern in Nonuse Willingness to Pay: Applications to Threatened and Endangered Marine Species," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 91(4), pages 739-761.
    22. De Valck, Jeremy & Rolfe, John, 2018. "Spatial Heterogeneity in Stated Preference Valuation: Status, Challenges and Road Ahead," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 11(4), pages 355-422, August.
    23. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Wiktor (Vic) Adamowicz & Jeff Bennett & Roy Brouwer & Trudy Ann Cameron & W. Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Mandy Ryan & Riccardo Scarpa & Roger Tourangeau & Ch, 2017. "Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 319-405.
    24. Roy Brouwer & Thijs Dekker & John Rolfe & Jill Windle, 2010. "Choice Certainty and Consistency in Repeated Choice Experiments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 46(1), pages 93-109, May.
    25. Hoyos, David, 2010. "The state of the art of environmental valuation with discrete choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1595-1603, June.
    26. Yongjie Ji & David A. Keiser & Catherine L. Kling, 2020. "Temporal Reliability of Welfare Estimates from Revealed Preferences," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(4), pages 659-686.
    27. Markus Bliem & Michael Getzner, 2012. "Willingness-to-pay for river restoration: differences across time and scenarios," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 14(3), pages 241-260, July.
    28. Mauricio Sillano & Juan de Dios Ortúzar, 2005. "Willingness-to-Pay Estimation with Mixed Logit Models: Some New Evidence," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(3), pages 525-550, March.
    29. Arne Risa Hole, 2007. "Fitting mixed logit models by using maximum simulated likelihood," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 7(3), pages 388-401, September.
    30. Krinsky, Itzhak & Robb, A Leslie, 1986. "On Approximating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(4), pages 715-719, November.
    31. Roy Brouwer & Ivana Logar & Oleg Sheremet, 2017. "Choice Consistency and Preference Stability in Test-Retests of Discrete Choice Experiment and Open-Ended Willingness to Pay Elicitation Formats," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(3), pages 729-751, November.
    32. Gregory L. Poe & Kelly L. Giraud & John B. Loomis, 2005. "Computational Methods for Measuring the Difference of Empirical Distributions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(2), pages 353-365.
    33. Gebeyehu Fetene & Søren Olsen & Ole Bonnichsen, 2014. "Disentangling the Pure Time Effect From Site and Preference Heterogeneity Effects in Benefit Transfer: An Empirical Investigation of Transferability," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(4), pages 583-611, December.
    34. Riccardo Scarpa & Mara Thiene & Kenneth Train, 2008. "Utility in Willingness to Pay Space: A Tool to Address Confounding Random Scale Effects in Destination Choice to the Alps," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 90(4), pages 994-1010.
    35. Jeff Bennett & Russell Blamey (ed.), 2001. "The Choice Modelling Approach to Environmental Valuation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2028.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joalland, Olivier & Mahieu, Pierre-Alexandre, 2023. "Developing large-scale offshore wind power programs: A choice experiment analysis in France," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    2. Luc Van Ootegem & Elsy Verhofstadt & Bart Defloor & Brent Bleys, 2022. "The Effect of COVID-19 on the Environmental Impact of Our Lifestyles and on Environmental Concern," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-14, July.
    3. Wunsch, Andrea & Meyerhoff, Jürgen & Rehdanz, Katrin, 2022. "A test–retest analysis of stated preferences in uncertain times," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 725-736.
    4. Artur Pawłowski & Paweł Rydzewski, 2023. "Challenges and Opportunities for the Energy Sector in the Face of Threats Such as Climate Change and the COVID-19 Pandemic—An International Perspective," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-21, May.
    5. Haghani, Milad & Bliemer, Michiel C.J. & de Bekker-Grob, Esther W., 2022. "Applications of discrete choice experiments in COVID-19 research: Disparity in survey qualities between health and transport fields," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rolfe, John & Dyack, Brenda, 2019. "Testing Temporal Stability of Recreation Values," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 75-83.
    2. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Wiktor (Vic) Adamowicz & Jeff Bennett & Roy Brouwer & Trudy Ann Cameron & W. Michael Hanemann & Nick Hanley & Mandy Ryan & Riccardo Scarpa & Roger Tourangeau & Ch, 2017. "Contemporary Guidance for Stated Preference Studies," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 319-405.
    3. Kuller, M. & Beutler, P. & Lienert, J., 2023. "Preference change in stakeholder group-decision processes in the public sector: Extent, causes and implications," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 308(3), pages 1268-1285.
    4. J. Price & D. Dupont & W. Adamowicz, 2017. "As Time Goes By: Examination of Temporal Stability Across Stated Preference Question Formats," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(3), pages 643-662, November.
    5. Matthews, Yvonne & Scarpa, Riccardo & Marsh, Dan, 2017. "Stability of Willingness-to-Pay for Coastal Management: A Choice Experiment Across Three Time Periods," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 64-73.
    6. Haghani, Milad & Bliemer, Michiel C.J. & Hensher, David A., 2021. "The landscape of econometric discrete choice modelling research," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    7. Benoit Chèze & Charles Collet & Anthony Paris, 2021. "Estimating discrete choice experiments : theoretical fundamentals," CIRED Working Papers hal-03262187, HAL.
    8. Schaafsma, Marije & Brouwer, Roy & Liekens, Inge & De Nocker, Leo, 2014. "Temporal stability of preferences and willingness to pay for natural areas in choice experiments: A test–retest," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 243-260.
    9. West, Grant H. & Snell, Heather & Kovacs, Kent & Nayga, Rodolfo M., 2020. "Estimation of the preferences for the intertemporal services from groundwater," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304220, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Ladenburg, Jacob & Skotte, Maria, 2022. "Heterogeneity in willingness to pay for the location of offshore wind power development: An application of the willingness to pay space model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    11. Roy Brouwer & Ivana Logar & Oleg Sheremet, 2017. "Choice Consistency and Preference Stability in Test-Retests of Discrete Choice Experiment and Open-Ended Willingness to Pay Elicitation Formats," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(3), pages 729-751, November.
    12. Lew, Daniel K. & Wallmo, Kristy, 2017. "Temporal stability of stated preferences for endangered species protection from choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 87-97.
    13. Wanggi Jaung & Louis Putzel & Gary Q. Bull & Diswandi Diswandi & Witardi & Markum, 2019. "Temporal Reliability of Willingness to Pay for Payments for Environmental Services: Lessons from Lombok, Indonesia," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(04), pages 1-22, October.
    14. Jie He & Bing Zhang, 2021. "Current Air Pollution and Willingness to Pay for Better Air Quality: Revisiting the Temporal Reliability of the Contingent Valuation Method," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(1), pages 135-168, May.
    15. Richard C. Bishop & Kevin J. Boyle, 2019. "Reliability and Validity in Nonmarket Valuation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(2), pages 559-582, February.
    16. Ajayi, V. & Reiner, D., 2020. "Consumer Willingness to Pay for Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Green Plastics," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 20110, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    17. Liebe, Ulf & Glenk, Klaus & von Meyer-Höfer, Marie & Spiller, Achim, 2019. "A web survey application of real choice experiments," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    18. Roy Brouwer & Solomon Tarfasa, 2020. "Testing hypothetical bias in a framed field experiment," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 68(3), pages 343-357, September.
    19. Weller, Priska & Elsasser, Peter, 2018. "Preferences for forest structural attributes in Germany – Evidence from a choice experiment," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-9.
    20. Gebeyehu Fetene & Søren Olsen & Ole Bonnichsen, 2014. "Disentangling the Pure Time Effect From Site and Preference Heterogeneity Effects in Benefit Transfer: An Empirical Investigation of Transferability," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(4), pages 583-611, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:189:y:2021:i:c:s0921800921002007. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.