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The spatial range of public goods revealed through referendum voting

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Author Info
Robert Deacon (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Felix Schläpfer (Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich, Switzerland)

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Abstract

Billions of dollars are now spent annually in the United States and Europe for spatially delineated environmental services such as agricultural landscape management and river restoration programs, yet little is known about the spatial distribution of the benefits from these policies. This paper develops a framework for recovering information on this question from the spatial pattern of votes cast for referenda on the provision of spatially delineated public goods. We specify a model linking voter support for environmental improvement to the distance at which such improvements are expected to occur. The empirical application is to a river restoration referendum in the Swiss canton of Bern. Our results indicate that the benefits from river restoration have a strong local component, sufficiently strong that voter approval would not occur if only canton-wide benefits were at stake. Surprisingly, support of river restoration is no greater, and in some specifications is actually lower, in locations where rivers are a prominent feature in the environment.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara in its series University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series with number 05-07.

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Date of creation: 01 Aug 2007
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Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:05-07

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Related research
Keywords: voting; local public goods; valuation;

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Ian J. Bateman, Ian H. Langford, 1997. "Non-users' Willingness to Pay for a National Park: An Application and Critique of the Contingent Valuation Method," Regional Studies, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 31(6), pages 571-582, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  3. Boyle Kevin J. & Desvousges William H. & Johnson F. Reed & Dunford Richard W. & Hudson Sara P., 1994. "An Investigation of Part-Whole Biases in Contingent-Valuation Studies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 64-83, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Kahn, Matthew E & Matsusaka, John G, 1997. "Demand for Environmental Goods: Evidence from Voting Patterns on California Initiatives," Journal of Law & Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(1), pages 137-73, April.
    Other versions:
  5. Elena G. Irwin, 2002. "The Effects of Open Space on Residential Property Values," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 78(4), pages 465-480. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Fischel, William A., 1979. "Determinants of voting on environmental quality: A study of a New Hampshire pulp mill referendum," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 107-118, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Richard C. Ready & Charles W. Abdalla, 2005. "The Amenity and Disamenity Impacts of Agriculture: Estimates from a Hedonic Pricing Model," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, American Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 87(2), pages 314-326, 05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Deacon, Robert T & Shapiro, Perry, 1975. "Private Preference for Collective Goods Revealed Through Voting on Referenda," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 943-55, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Pate, Jennifer & Loomis, John, 1997. "The effect of distance on willingness to pay values: a case study of wetlands and salmon in California," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 199-207, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. John B. Loomis, 2000. "Vertically Summing Public Good Demand Curves: An Empirical Comparison of Economic versus Political Jurisdictions," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 76(2), pages 312-321. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Felix Schläpfer & Nick Hanley, 2003. "Do Local Landscape Patterns Affect the Demand for Landscape Amenities Protection?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(1), pages 21-34. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Geoghegan, Jacqueline & Wainger, Lisa A. & Bockstael, Nancy E., 1997. "Spatial landscape indices in a hedonic framework: an ecological economics analysis using GIS," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 251-264, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Rollins, Kimberly & Lyke, Audrey, 1998. "The Case for Diminishing Marginal Existence Values," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 324-344, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Kotchen, Matthew J. & Powers, Shawn M., 2006. "Explaining the appearance and success of voter referenda for open-space conservation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 373-390, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Felix Schläpfer & Nick Hanley, 2006. "Contingent Valuation and Collective Choice," Kyklos, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 59(1), pages 115-135, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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