IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jriskr/v3y2000i4p305-320.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sensitivity of willingness to pay to the magnitude of risk reduction: a Taiwan­United States comparison

Author

Listed:
  • James K Hammitt
  • Jin-Tan Liu
  • Wen-Ching KLin

Abstract

Estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) for health, environmental, and other goods obtained using contingent valuation (CV) have been criticized as inadequately sensitive to the scope or magnitude of the good. We investigate the sensitivity of WTP to variation in the magnitude of reductions in health risk using survey data collected in two countries, Taiwan and the United States, that differ dramatically with respect to economic development and cultural background. WTP is elicited for reductions in acute risks associated with food poisoning and blood transfusion, and for reductions in the chronic risk of pneumonia at advanced ages. Results are similar in the two countries and provide little evidence that CV-based estimates are sufficiently sensitive to the magnitude of the risk reduction. Inadequate sensitivity of estimated WTP to the magnitude of risk reduction suggests that improved methods are required for estimating consumers' rates of substitution between health risk and other goods.

Suggested Citation

  • James K Hammitt & Jin-Tan Liu & Wen-Ching KLin, 2000. "Sensitivity of willingness to pay to the magnitude of risk reduction: a Taiwan­United States comparison," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(4), pages 305-320, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jriskr:v:3:y:2000:i:4:p:305-320
    DOI: 10.1080/13669870050132531
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13669870050132531
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13669870050132531?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. Tolley, George & Kenkel, Donald & Fabian, Robert (ed.), 1994. "Valuing Health for Policy," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226807133, June.
    2. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1996. "To Be, or Not to Be, That Is the Question: An Empirical Study of the WTP for an Increased Life Expectancy at an Advanced Age," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 163-174, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Hammitt, James K & Graham, John D, 1999. "Willingness to Pay for Health Protection: Inadequate Sensitivity to Probability?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 33-62, April.
    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. Strand.J., 2001. "Public- and private-good values of statistical lives : results from a combined choice-experiment and contingent-valuation survey," Memorandum 31/2001, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    2. Guofang Zhai & Takeshi Suzuki, 2008. "Effects of Risk Representation and Scope on Willingness to Pay for Reduced Risks: Evidence from Tokyo Bay, Japan," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 513-522, April.

    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. Henrik Hammar & Olof Johansson‐Stenman, 2004. "The value of risk‐free cigarettes – do smokers underestimate the risk?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 59-71, January.
    2. Stefania Tonin & Anna Alberini & Margherita Turvani, 2012. "The Value of Reducing Cancer Risks at Contaminated Sites: Are More Knowledgeable People Willing to Pay More?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(7), pages 1157-1182, July.
    3. Vredin Johansson, Maria & Heldt, Tobias & Johansson, Per, 2006. "The effects of attitudes and personality traits on mode choice," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 507-525, July.
    4. Gyrd-Hansen, Dorte & Kjær, Trine & Nielsen, Jytte Seested, 2016. "The value of mortality risk reductions. Pure altruism - a confounder?," DaCHE discussion papers 2016:5, University of Southern Denmark, Dache - Danish Centre for Health Economics.
    5. Kevin Haninger & James K. Hammitt, 2011. "Diminishing Willingness to Pay per Quality‐Adjusted Life Year: Valuing Acute Foodborne Illness," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(9), pages 1363-1380, September.
    6. Lars Hein & Pete Roberts & Lucia Gonzalez, 2016. "Valuing a Statistical Life Year in Relation to Clean Air," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(04), pages 1-24, December.
    7. Hammitt, James K. & Herrera-Araujo, Daniel, 2018. "Peeling back the onion: Using latent class analysis to uncover heterogeneous responses to stated preference surveys," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 165-189.
    8. Svensson, Mikael & Vredin Johansson, Maria, 2007. "Willingness to Pay for Private and Public Safety: Why the Difference?," Working Papers 2007:2, Örebro University, School of Business.
    9. Henrik Andersson & James K. Hammitt & Kristian Sundström, 2015. "Willingness to Pay and QALYs: What Can We Learn about Valuing Foodborne Risk?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 727-752, September.
    10. Lars Hultkrantz & Gunnar Lindberg & Camilla Andersson, 2006. "The value of improved road safety," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 151-170, March.
    11. Johannesson, Magnus & Johansson, Per-Olov, 1997. "Quality of life and the WTP for an increased life expectancy at an advanced age," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 219-228, August.
    12. Julia Martin‐Ortega & M. Azahara Mesa‐Jurado & Julio Berbel, 2015. "Revisiting the Impact of Order Effects on Sensitivity to Scope: A Contingent Valuation of a Common‐Pool Resource," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(3), pages 705-726, September.
    13. Entorf, Horst, 2013. "Der Wert der Sicherheit: Anmerkungen zur Ökonomie der Sicherheit [The value of safety: Some remarks on the economics of safety]," MPRA Paper 49692, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Ortiz, Ramon Arigoni & Markandya, Anil & Hunt, Alistair, 2009. "Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reduction Associated with Air Pollution in Sao Paulo," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 63(1), April.
    15. Joan Costa Font & Juan Rovira Forns, 2004. "Willigness to Pay for Long-Term Care Coverage: the Role of Private Information and Self-Insurance," Working Papers in Economics 124, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    16. Poe, Gregory, 1997. ""Maximizing the Environmental Benefits per Dollar Expended" An Economic Interpretation and Review of Agricultural Environmental Benefits and Costs," EB Series 186405, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    17. Krupnick, Alan & Alberini, Anna & Simon, Nathalie & Itaoka, Kenshi & Akai, Makoto & Cropper, Maureen, 2005. "Age, Health, and the Willingness to Pay for Mortality Risk Reductions: A Contingent Valuation Survey in Japan," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-34, Resources for the Future.
    18. Herrera-Araujo, Daniel & Rheinberger, Christoph M. & Hammitt, James K., 2022. "Valuing non-marginal changes in mortality and morbidity risk," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. A. Freeman, 2006. "Valuing Environmental Health Effects – An Economic Perspective," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(3), pages 347-363, July.
    20. Thomas Hammerschmidt & Hans‐Peter Zeitler & Reiner Leidl, 2004. "A utility‐theoretic approach to the aggregation of willingness to pay measured in decomposed scenarios: development and empirical test," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 345-361, April.

    More about this item

    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:taf:jriskr:v:3:y:2000:i:4:p:305-320. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJRR20 .

    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.