IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/ueaeco/2017_01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating demand for reliable piped-water services in urban Ghana: An application of competing valuation approaches

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony Amoah

    (Central University, Accra-Ghana)

  • Peter G. Moffatt

    (University of East Anglia)

Abstract

This paper applies three valuation methods to estimate demand for reliable piped-water services in Ghana. Our goal is to estimate the economic value of reliable piped-water supply, and use competing methods to provide validity checks for our estimates. We survey 1,648 urban households and find that the average amount that households are willing to pay per month is GHS 44.73 or US$14.27 (Hedonic Price Method), GHS 22.72 or US$7.25 (Travel Cost Method) and GHS 47.80 or US$15.25 (Contingent Valuation Method) respectively. These amounts are equivalent to 3%-8% of households' income. This study provides evidence of the economic viability of private sector involvement in the water sector in Ghana. Our estimates seek to inform both managers and policy makers in their decision-making on reliable piped-water supply.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Amoah & Peter G. Moffatt, 2017. "Estimating demand for reliable piped-water services in urban Ghana: An application of competing valuation approaches," University of East Anglia School of Economics Working Paper Series 2017-01, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    • Handle: RePEc:uea:ueaeco:2017_01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ueaeco.github.io/working-papers/papers/ueaeco/UEA-ECO-17-01.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Whittington, Dale, 1998. "Administering contingent valuation surveys in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 21-30, January.
    2. Kevin J. Boyle & F. Reed Johnson & Daniel W. McCollum, 1997. "Anchoring and Adjustment in Single-Bounded, Contingent-Valuation Questions," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1495-1500.
    3. Choumert, Johanna & Stage, Jesper & Uwera, Claudine, 2014. "Access to water as determinant of rental values: A housing hedonic analysis in Rwanda," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 48-54.
    4. Green, Donald & Jacowitz, Karen E. & Kahneman, Daniel & McFadden, Daniel, 1998. "Referendum contingent valuation, anchoring, and willingness to pay for public goods," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 85-116, June.
    5. Pattanayak, Subhrendu K. & van den Berg, Caroline & Yang, Jui-Chen & Van Houtven, George, 2006. "The use of willingness to pay experiments : estimating demand for piped water connections in Sri Lanka," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3818, The World Bank.
    6. Nick Hanley & Clive L. Spash, 1993. "Cost–Benefit Analysis and the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 205.
    7. Rex Labao & Herminia Francisco & Dieldre Harder & Florence Santos, 2008. "Do Colored Photographs Affect Willingness to Pay Responses for Endangered Species Conservation?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 251-264, June.
    8. Sheppard, Stephen, 1999. "Hedonic analysis of housing markets," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 41, pages 1595-1635, Elsevier.
    9. Mikołaj Czajkowski & Marek Giergiczny & Jakub Kronenberg & Jeffrey Englin, 2019. "The Individual Travel Cost Method with Consumer-Specific Values of Travel Time Savings," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(3), pages 961-984, November.
    10. Whittington, Dale & Lauria, Donald T. & Mu, Xinming, 1991. "A study of water vending and willingness to pay for water in Onitsha, Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 179-198.
    11. Daniel M. Hellerstein, 1991. "Using Count Data Models in Travel Cost Analysis with Aggregate Data," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 73(3), pages 860-866.
    12. Elnagheeb, Abdelmoneim H. & Jordan, Jeffrey L., 1997. "Estimating the Willingness-to-Pay for Water in Georgia," Journal of Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics Association of Georgia, vol. 15(1), pages 1-18.
    13. Gaetano Lisi, 2013. "On the Functional Form of the Hedonic Price Function: A Matching-theoretic Model and Empirical Evidence," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 16(2), pages 189-207.
    14. Clive L Spash, 2008. "The Contingent Valuation Method: Retrospect and Prospect," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2008-04, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    15. Jeffrey Englin & Trudy Cameron, 1996. "Augmenting travel cost models with contingent behavior data," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 7(2), pages 133-147, March.
    16. Halvorsen, Robert & Pollakowski, Henry O., 1981. "Choice of functional form for hedonic price equations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 37-49, July.
    17. Eric Nazindigouba KERE & Johanna CHOUMERT & Amandine Loyal LARÉ-DONDARINI, 2014. "The impact of water and sanitation access on housing values: The case of Dapaong, Togo," Working Papers 201403, CERDI.
    18. Grogger, J T & Carson, Richard T, 1991. "Models for Truncated Counts," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(3), pages 225-238, July-Sept.
    19. Johanna CHOUMERT & Jesper STAGE & Claudine UWERA, 2014. "Access to water as a determinant of rental values: A hedonic analysis in Rwanda," Working Papers 201401, CERDI.
    20. Hausman, Jerry A. & Leonard, Gregory K. & McFadden, Daniel, 1995. "A utility-consistent, combined discrete choice and count data model Assessing recreational use losses due to natural resource damage," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 1-30, January.
    21. Timothy C. Haab & Kenneth E. McConnell, 2002. "Valuing Environmental and Natural Resources," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2427.
    22. Cummings, R. & Schulze, W. & Gerking, S. & Brookshire, D., 1986. "Measuring the elasticity of substitution of wages for municipal infrastructure: A comparison of the survey and wage hedonic approaches," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 269-276, September.
    23. Kevin J. Boyle, 1989. "Commodity Specification and the Framing of Contingent-Valuation Questions," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 65(1), pages 57-63.
    24. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    25. Richard T. Carson & Nicholas E. Flores & Kerry M. Martin & Jennifer L. Wright, 1996. "Contingent Valuation and Revealed Preference Methodologies: Comparing the Estimates for Quasi-Public Goods," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 72(1), pages 80-99.
    26. Cameron, Trudy Ann & Englin, Jeffrey, 1997. "Respondent Experience and Contingent Valuation of Environmental Goods," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 296-313, July.
    27. Krupnick, Alan & Alberini, Anna & Cropper, Maureen & Simon, Nathalie & O'Brien, Bernie & Goeree, Ron & Heintzelman, Martin, 2002. "Age, Health and the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions: A Contingent Valuation Survey of Ontario Residents," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 161-186, March.
    28. Fleming, Christopher M. & Cook, Averil, 2007. "The recreational value of Lake McKenzie: An application of the travel cost method," 2007 Conference (51st), February 13-16, 2007, Queenstown, New Zealand 10382, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    29. Guy Garrod & Kenneth G. Willis, 1999. "Economic Valuation of the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1368.
    30. Whittington, Dale & Mu, Xinming & Roche, Robert, 1990. "Calculating the value of time spent collecting water: Some estimates for Ukunda, Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 269-280, February.
    31. P. C. Cheshire & E. S. Mills (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    32. Shrestha, Ram K. & Seidl, Andrew F. & Moraes, Andre S., 2002. "Value of recreational fishing in the Brazilian Pantanal: a travel cost analysis using count data models," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 289-299, August.
    33. Caroline Berg & Céline Nauges, 2012. "The willingness to pay for access to piped water: a hedonic analysis of house prices in Southwest Sri Lanka," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 151-166, October.
    34. Michael D. Creel & John B. Loomis, 1990. "Theoretical and Empirical Advantages of Truncated Count Data Estimators for Analysis of Deer Hunting in California," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(2), pages 434-441.
    35. Rebecca Hill & John Loomis & Dawn Thilmany & Martha Sullins, 2014. "Economic Values of Agritourism to Visitors: A Multi-Destination Hurdle Travel Cost Model of Demand," Tourism Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 1047-1065, October.
    36. Englin, Jeffrey & Shonkwiler, J S, 1995. "Estimating Social Welfare Using Count Data Models: An Application to Long-Run Recreation Demand under Conditions of Endogenous Stratification and Truncation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(1), pages 104-112, February.
    37. Zabel, Jeffrey E., 2004. "The demand for housing services," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 16-35, March.
    38. Feather Peter & Hellerstein Daniel & Tomasi Theodore, 1995. "A Discrete-Count Model of Recreational Demand," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 214-227, September.
    39. Dale Whittington & Stefano Pagiola, 2012. "Using Contingent Valuation in the Design of Payments for Environmental Services Mechanisms: A Review and Assessment," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 27(2), pages 261-287, August.
    40. Timothy J. Bartik, 2008. "Measuring the Benefits of Amenity Improvements in Hedonic Price Models," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Richard E. Just & Darrell L. Hueth & Andrew Schmitz (ed.),Applied Welfare Economics, pages 643-654, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    41. Brookshire, David S & Thayer. Mark A & Tschirhart, John & Schulze, William D, 1985. "A Test of the Expected Utility Model: Evidence from Earthquake Risks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 369-389, April.
    42. Cropper, Maureen L & Deck, Leland B & McConnell, Kenneth E, 1988. "On the Choice of Functional Form for Hedonic Price Functions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(4), pages 668-675, November.
    43. V. Kerry Smith, 1993. "Nonmarket Valuation of Environmental Resources: An Interpretive Appraisal," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 69(1), pages 1-26.
    44. Cassel, Eric & Mendelsohn, Robert, 1985. "The choice of functional forms for hedonic price equations: Comment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 135-142, September.
    45. Bishop, Richard C. & Heberlein, Thomas A., 1979. "Measuring Values Of Extramarket Goods: Are Indirect Measures Biased?," 1979 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, Pullman, Washington 277818, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    46. Wiktor Adamowicz & Michel Hanemann & Joffre Swait & Reed Johnson & David Layton & Michel Regenwetter & Torsten Reimer & Robert Sorkin, 2005. "Decision Strategy and Structure in Households: A “Groups” Perspective," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 387-399, December.
    47. Briscoe, John, et al, 1990. "Toward Equitable and Sustainable Rural Water Supplies: A Contingent Valuation Study in Brazil," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(2), pages 115-134, May.
    48. Gulyani, Sumila & Talukdar, Debabrata, 2008. "Slum Real Estate: The Low-Quality High-Price Puzzle in Nairobi's Slum Rental Market and its Implications for Theory and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1916-1937, October.
    49. Krishna, Vijesh V. & Drucker, Adam G. & Pascual, Unai & Raghu, Prabhakaran T. & King, E.D. Israel Oliver, 2013. "Estimating compensation payments for on-farm conservation of agricultural biodiversity in developing countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 110-123.
    50. Richard C. Bishop & Thomas A. Heberlein, 1979. "Measuring Values of Extramarket Goods: Are Indirect Measures Biased?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 61(5), pages 926-930.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Anthony Amoah & Peter G. Moffatt, 2021. "Willingness to pay for reliable piped water services: evidence from urban Ghana," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(4), pages 805-829, October.
    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. Choumert, Johanna & Stage, Jesper & Uwera, Claudine, 2014. "Access to water as determinant of rental values: A housing hedonic analysis in Rwanda," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 48-54.
    4. Chin-Huang Huang & Chiung-Hsia Wang, 2015. "Estimating the Total Economic Value of Cultivated Flower Land in Taiwan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-19, April.
    5. Roberto Martinez-Espineira & Joe Amoako-Tuffour, 2005. "Recreation Demand Analysis under Truncation, Overdispersion, and Endogenous Stratification: An Application to Gros Morne National Park," Econometrics 0511007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Andrea Baranzini & José V. Ramirez, 2005. "Paying for Quietness: The Impact of Noise on Geneva Rents," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(4), pages 633-646, April.
    7. Doshi, Amar & Pascoe, Sean, 2013. "Investigating the effects of sample heterogeneity on the travel cost model for coral diving in Southeast Asia," 2013 Conference (57th), February 5-8, 2013, Sydney, Australia 152146, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    8. Amoako-Tuffour, Joe & Martınez-Espineira, Roberto, 2008. "Leisure and the Opportunity Cost of Travel Time in Recreation Demand Analysis: A Re-Examination," MPRA Paper 8573, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Paul Mwebaze & Jeff Bennett, 2012. "Valuing Australian botanic collections: a combined travel-cost and contingent valuation study," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(4), pages 498-520, October.
    10. Hervani, Aref Agahei & Sarkis, Joseph & Helms, Marilyn M., 2017. "Environmental goods valuations for social sustainability: A conceptual framework," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 137-153.
    11. Johanna CHOUMERT & Jesper STAGE & Claudine UWERA, 2014. "Access to water as a determinant of rental values: A hedonic analysis in Rwanda," Working Papers 201401, CERDI.
    12. Anders Van Sandt & Dawn Thilmany McFadden, 2022. "Navigating the corn maze: Customizing travel cost models to value market segments in heterogeneous industries," Tourism Economics, , vol. 28(4), pages 899-919, June.
    13. Rolfe, John & Dyack, Brenda, 2010. "Testing for convergent validity between travel cost and contingent valuation estimates of recreation values in the Coorong, Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(4), pages 1-17.
    14. Edwin Muchapondwa & Eyoual Demeke & Samson Mukanjari, 2018. "Recreation Demand and Optimal Pricing for International Visitors to Kruger National Park," Working Papers 743, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    15. Wieser, Robert, 2009. "Parameterstabilität in hedonischen Bodenpreismodellen [Stability of Parameters in Hedonic Urban Land Price Models]," MPRA Paper 65859, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Arwin Pang, 2022. "Investigating heteroscedasticity using the over-dispersion parameter in a travel cost model," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 507-516, December.
    17. Erik Wallentin, 2016. "Choice of the angler," Tourism Economics, , vol. 22(6), pages 1338-1351, December.
    18. John Cullinan, 2011. "A Spatial Microsimulation Approach to Estimating the Total Number and Economic Value of Site Visits in Travel Cost Modelling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(1), pages 27-47, September.
    19. Mikołaj Czajkowski & Marek Giergiczny & Jakub Kronenberg & Jeffrey Englin, 2019. "The Individual Travel Cost Method with Consumer-Specific Values of Travel Time Savings," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(3), pages 961-984, November.
    20. Yinger, John, 2015. "Hedonic markets and sorting equilibria: Bid-function envelopes for public services and neighborhood amenities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 9-25.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    piped-water; willingness-to-pay; hedonic price; contingent valuation; travel cost;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:uea:ueaeco:2017_01. 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: Cara Liggins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.html .

    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.