IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/aareaj/118585.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer versus citizen preferences in contingent valuation: evidence on the role of question framing

Author

Listed:
  • Ovaskainen, Ville
  • Kniivila, Matleena

Abstract

Rather than individual consumer preferences, responses to referendum-style contingent valuation surveys on environmental goods may express citizen assessments that take into account benefits to others. We reconsider the consumer versus citizen hypothesis with a focus on the role of framing information. Survey data on conservation areas in Ilomantsi, Finland, are used. Different versions of the valuation question were used to encourage the respondents to take the consumer or the citizen role. The citizen version expectedly resulted in substantially fewer zero-WTP responses and protests and higher mean and median WTP, suggesting that the framing information has a major effect on the preferences expressed. The findings support the idea of multiple preferences. For a more confident interpretation of contingent valuation responses, future studies should recognise their intended use in survey design and gain information about respondents’ motives to determine the presence and type of altruistic motives.

Suggested Citation

  • Ovaskainen, Ville & Kniivila, Matleena, 2005. "Consumer versus citizen preferences in contingent valuation: evidence on the role of question framing," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 49(4), pages 1-16.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aareaj:118585
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.118585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/118585/files/j.1467-8489.2005.00309.x.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.118585?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Haab, Timothy C. & McConnell, Kenneth E., 1997. "Referendum Models and Negative Willingness to Pay: Alternative Solutions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 251-270, February.
    2. Thomas H. Stevens & Jaime Echeverria & Ronald J. Glass & Tim Hager & Thomas A. More, 1991. "Measuring the Existence Value of Wildlife: What Do CVM Estimates Really Show?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 67(4), pages 390-400.
    3. Kniivilä, Matleena & Ovaskainen, Ville & Saastamoinen, Olli & Kniivilä, Matleena, 2002. "Costs and benefits of forest conservation: regional and local comparisons in Eastern Finland," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 131-150.
    4. Russell, Clifford S. & Bjorner, Thomas Bue & Clark, Christopher D., 2003. "Searching for evidence of alternative preferences, public as opposed to private," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 1-27, May.
    5. Blamey, Russell K. & Common, Mick S. & Quiggin, John C., 1995. "Respondents To Contingent Valuation Surveys: Consumers Or Citizens?," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 39(3), pages 1-26, December.
    6. McConnell, K. E., 1997. "Does Altruism Undermine Existence Value?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 22-37, January.
    7. Curtis, John A. & McConnell, Kenneth E., 1997. "The citizen versus consumer hypothesis: Evidence from a contingent valuation survey," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(1), pages 1-15.
    8. Douglas Macmillan & Elizabeth Duff & David Elston, 2001. "Modelling the Non-market Environmental Costs and Benefits of Biodiversity Projects Using Contingent Valuation Data," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 18(4), pages 391-410, April.
    9. Clinch, J Peter & Murphy, Anthony, 2001. "Modelling Winners and Losers in Contingent Valuation of Public Goods: Appropriate Welfare Measures and Econometric Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(470), pages 420-443, April.
    10. Ajzen, Icek & Brown, Thomas C. & Rosenthal, Lori H., 1996. "Information Bias in Contingent Valuation: Effects of Personal Relevance, Quality of Information, and Motivational Orientation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 43-57, January.
    11. Peter A. Diamond & Jerry A. Hausman, 1994. "Contingent Valuation: Is Some Number Better than No Number?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 45-64, Fall.
    12. John C. Harsanyi, 1955. "Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(4), pages 309-309.
    13. Bengt Kriström, 1997. "Spike Models in Contingent Valuation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(3), pages 1013-1023.
    14. Nyborg, Karine, 2000. "Homo Economicus and Homo Politicus: interpretation and aggregation of environmental values," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 305-322, July.
    15. Salvador Del Saz-Salazar & Leandro Garcia-Menendez, 2001. "Willingness to Pay for Environmental Improvements in a Large City Evidence from The Spike Model and From a Non-Parametric Approach," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 20(2), pages 103-112, October.
    16. Anni Huhtala, 2000. "Binary Choice Valuation Studies with Heteregeneous Preferences Regarding the Program Being Valued," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 16(3), pages 263-279, July.
    17. Keith, John E. & Fawson, Christopher & Johnson, Van, 1996. "Preservation or use A contingent valuation study of wilderness designation in Utah," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 207-214, September.
    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. Ville Ovaskainen & Matleena Kniivilä, 2005. "Consumer versus citizen preferences in contingent valuation: evidence on the role of question framing," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 49(4), pages 379-394, December.
    2. Howley, Peter & Hynes, Stephen & O'Donoghue, Cathal, 2010. "The citizen versus consumer distinction: An exploration of individuals' preferences in Contingent Valuation studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 1524-1531, May.
    3. Veisten, Knut, 2007. "Contingent valuation controversies: Philosophic debates about economic theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 204-232, April.
    4. Alphonce, Roselyne & Alfnes, Frode & Sharma, Amit, 2014. "Consumer vs. citizen willingness to pay for restaurant food safety," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(P1), pages 160-166.
    5. Camila Balbontin & David A. Hensher & Chinh Ho & Corinne Mulley, 0. "Do preferences for BRT and LRT change as a voter, citizen, tax payer, or self-interested resident?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-50.
    6. Martinez-Espineira, Roberto, 2006. "A Box-Cox Double-Hurdle model of wildlife valuation: The citizen's perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 192-208, June.
    7. Camila Balbontin & David A. Hensher & Chinh Ho & Corinne Mulley, 2020. "Do preferences for BRT and LRT change as a voter, citizen, tax payer, or self-interested resident?," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 2981-3030, December.
    8. Loureiro, Maria L. & Loomis, John B. & Nahuelhual, Laura, 2004. "A comparison of a parametric and a non-parametric method to value a non-rejectable public good," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 61-74, September.
    9. Nyborg, Karine, 2000. "Homo Economicus and Homo Politicus: interpretation and aggregation of environmental values," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 305-322, July.
    10. Cho, Seong-Hoon & Yen, Steven T. & Bowker, J.M. & Newman, David H., 2008. "Modeling Willingness to Pay for Land Conservation Easements: Treatment of Zero and Protest Bids and Application and Policy Implications," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 267-285, April.
    11. Curtis, John A. & McConnell, Kenneth E., 1997. "The citizen versus consumer hypothesis: Evidence from a contingent valuation survey," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(1), pages 1-15.
    12. Lee, Gi-Eu & Loveridge, Scott & Joshi, Satish, 2017. "Local acceptance and heterogeneous externalities of biorefineries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 328-336.
    13. Andrew Mill, Greig & van Rensburg, Tom M. & Hynes, Stephen & Dooley, Conor, 2007. "Preferences for multiple use forest management in Ireland: Citizen and consumer perpectives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 642-653, January.
    14. Bugbee, Marcia & Loureiro, Maria L., 2003. "A Risk Perception Analysis Of Genetically Modified Foods Based On Stated Preferences," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22017, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    15. Mouter, Niek & Cabral, Manuel Ojeda & Dekker, Thijs & van Cranenburgh, Sander, 2019. "The value of travel time, noise pollution, recreation and biodiversity: A social choice valuation perspective," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    16. Mouter, Niek & van Cranenburgh, Sander & van Wee, Bert, 2017. "Do individuals have different preferences as consumer and citizen? The trade-off between travel time and safety," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 333-349.
    17. Ojea, Elena & Loureiro, Maria L., 2011. "Identifying the scope effect on a meta-analysis of biodiversity valuation studies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 706-724, September.
    18. Peter Howley & Stephen Hynes & Cathal O’Donoghue, 2009. "The citizen versus consumer hypothesis: Do welfare estimates differ?," Working Papers 0911, Rural Economy and Development Programme,Teagasc.
    19. Pere Riera & Raúl Brey & Guillermo Gándara, 2008. "Bid design for non-parametric contingent valuation with a single bounded dichotomous choice format," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 186(3), pages 43-60, October.
    20. Clark, Judy & Burgess, Jacquelin & Harrison, Carolyn M., 2000. ""I struggled with this money business": respondents' perspectives on contingent valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 45-62, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer/Household Economics;

    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:ags:aareaj:118585. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.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.