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Is the environment a luxury? An empirical investigation using revealed preferences and household production

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  • Martini, Chiara
  • Tiezzi, Silvia

Abstract

This paper combines demand analysis with household production to estimate the marginal willingness to pay for improvements in air quality in Italy and the corresponding income elasticity of willingness to pay. We use choice based data on Italian households’ current consumption expenditures from January 1999 to December 2006 merged with an air quality index. We consistently find that the income elasticity of willingness to pay for environmental quality is very close to one across income groups. Besides contributing to a strand of literature where there is scant empirical evidence, we provide the first attempt at implementing the theoretical approach suggested by Ebert (2007), which derives willingness to pay and its income elasticity using revealed preferences combined with household production.

Suggested Citation

  • Martini, Chiara & Tiezzi, Silvia, 2014. "Is the environment a luxury? An empirical investigation using revealed preferences and household production," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 147-167.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:resene:v:37:y:2014:i:c:p:147-167
    DOI: 10.1016/j.reseneeco.2013.11.014
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    2. Shihomi Ara & Cem Tekeşin, 2017. "The Monetary Valuation of Lifetime Health Improvement and Life Expectancy Gains in Turkey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-27, September.
    3. Moritz A. Drupp, 2018. "Limits to Substitution Between Ecosystem Services and Manufactured Goods and Implications for Social Discounting," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(1), pages 135-158, January.
    4. Karanfil, Fatih & Pierru, Axel, 2021. "The opportunity cost of domestic oil consumption for an oil exporter: Illustration for Saudi Arabia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Mihaela Simionescu & Carmen Beatrice Păuna & Mihaela-Daniela Vornicescu Niculescu, 2021. "The Relationship between Economic Growth and Pollution in Some New European Union Member States: A Dynamic Panel ARDL Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-17, April.
    6. Kashwan, Prakash, 2017. "Inequality, democracy, and the environment: A cross-national analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 139-151.
    7. Dupoux, Marion & Martinet, Vincent, 2022. "Could the environment be a normal good for you and an inferior good for me? A theory of context-dependent substitutability and needs," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    8. Michalis Skourtos & Dimitris Damigos & Areti Kontogianni & Christos Tourkolias & Alistair Hunt, 2019. "Embedding Preference Uncertainty for Environmental Amenities in Climate Change Economic Assessments: A “Random” Step Forward," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-22, October.
    9. Łaszkiewicz, Edyta & Czembrowski, Piotr & Kronenberg, Jakub, 2019. "Can proximity to urban green spaces be considered a luxury? Classifying a non-tradable good with the use of hedonic pricing method," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 237-247.
    10. Andreas, Jan-Justus & Burns, Charlotte & Touza, Julia, 2017. "Renewable Energy as a Luxury? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the Role of the Economy in the EU's Renewable Energy Transitions During the ‘Double Crisis’," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 81-90.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Income elasticity of willingness to pay; Household production; Mixed demand systems; Integrability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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