IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/framed/00133.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do causes of environmental problems affect hicksian equivalent surplus? Evidence from the field

Author

Listed:
  • Erwin Bulte
  • Aart de Zeeuw
  • Shelby Gerking
  • John List

Abstract

Measuring preferences via stated methods remains the only technique to obtain the total economic value of a non-marketed good or service. This study examines if alternative causes of an environmental problem affect individual statements of compensation demanded. Making use of a unique sample drawn from the Netherlands, we find that Hicksian equivalent surplus (ES) is not significantly affected by causes of environmental harm. While our finding that agents only care about outcomes, rather than causes, is consonant with standard applications of utility theory, it is at odds with some recent experimental findings measuring the effects of cause on Hicksian compensating surplus (CS).

Suggested Citation

  • Erwin Bulte & Aart de Zeeuw & Shelby Gerking & John List, 2004. "Do causes of environmental problems affect hicksian equivalent surplus? Evidence from the field," Framed Field Experiments 00133, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:framed:00133
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00133.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boyce, Rebecca R, et al, 1992. "An Experimental Examination of Intrinsic Values as a," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(5), pages 1366-1373, December.
    2. Baron, Jonathan & Ritov, Ilana, 1993. "Intuitions about Penalties and Compensation in the Context of Tort Law," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 17-33, August.
    3. Kahneman, Daniel & Ritov, Ilana, 1994. "Determinants of Stated Willingness to Pay for Public Goods: A Study in the Headline Method," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 5-38, July.
    4. Bulte, Erwin & Gerking, Shelby & List, John A. & de Zeeuw, Aart, 2005. "The effect of varying the causes of environmental problems on stated WTP values: evidence from a field study," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 330-342, March.
    5. John A. List, 2003. "Does Market Experience Eliminate Market Anomalies?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 41-71.
    6. John A. List, 2004. "Neoclassical Theory Versus Prospect Theory: Evidence from the Marketplace," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 615-625, March.
    7. Irwin, Julie R., 1994. "Buying/Selling Price Preference Reversals: Preference for Environmental Changes in Buying versus Selling Modes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 431-457, December.
    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. repec:feb:framed:0001 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. María del Pilar García Pachón, 2016. "Instrumentos Económicos Y Financieros Para La Gestión Ambiental," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 853, May.
    3. Roth, Gerrit, 2006. "Predicting the Gap between Willingness to Accept and Willingness to Pay," Munich Dissertations in Economics 4901, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    4. Andrea Isoni, 2011. "The willingness-to-accept/willingness-to-pay disparity in repeated markets: loss aversion or ‘bad-deal’ aversion?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 409-430, September.
    5. John A. List & Michael K. Price, 2013. "Using Field Experiments in Environmental and Resource Economics," NBER Working Papers 19289, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. John K. Horowitz & Kenneth E. McConnell & James J. Murphy, 2013. "Behavioral foundations of environmental economics and valuation," Chapters, in: John A. List & Michael K. Price (ed.), Handbook on Experimental Economics and the Environment, chapter 4, pages 115-156, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Johnston, Andrew C., 2021. "Preferences, Selection, and the Structure of Teacher Pay," IZA Discussion Papers 14831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Lamar Pierce & Alex Rees-Jones & Charlotte Blank, 2025. "The Negative Consequences of Loss-Framed Performance Incentives," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 506-539, February.
    9. Nicolás C. Bronfman & Luis Abdón Cifuentes & Michael L. deKay & Henry H. Willis, 2007. "Accounting for Variation in the Explanatory Power of the Psychometric Paradigm: The Effects of Aggregation and Focus," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 527-554, June.
    10. Meub, Lukas & Proeger, Till, 2016. "Are groups 'less behavioral'? The case of anchoring," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 188 [rev.], University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    11. Dirk Engelmann & Guillaume Hollard, 2010. "Reconsidering the Effect of Market Experience on the “Endowment Effect”," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(6), pages 2005-2019, November.
    12. Marianne Bertrand & Dean Karlin & Sendhil Mullainathan & Eldar Shafir & Jonathan Zinman, 2005. "What's Psychology Worth? A Field Experiment in the Consumer Credit Market," NBER Working Papers 11892, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Jonathan E. Alevy & Michael K. Price, 2012. "Advice and Fictive Learning: The Pricing of Assets in the Laboratory," Working Papers 2012-07, University of Alaska Anchorage, Department of Economics.
    14. Aravena, Claudia & Hutchinson, W. George & Carlsson, Fredrik & Matthews, David I, 2015. "Testing preference formation in learning design contingent valuation (LDCV) using advanced information and repetitivetreatments," Working Papers in Economics 619, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Maren Baars & Michael Goedde‐Menke, 2022. "Ignorance illusion in decisions under risk: The impact of perceived expertise on probability weighting," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 89(1), pages 35-62, March.
    16. Yuval Arbel & Danny Ben-Shahar & Stuart Gabriel, 2016. "Are The Disabled Less Loss Averse? Evidence From A Natural Policy Experiment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 54(2), pages 1291-1318, April.
    17. Ariane Charpin, 2018. "Tests des modèles de décision en situation de risque. Le cas des parieurs hippiques en France," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 69(5), pages 779-803.
    18. Stefano DellaVigna, 2009. "Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 315-372, June.
    19. Melesse, Mequanint B. & Cecchi, Francesco, 2017. "Does Market Experience Attenuate Risk Aversion? Evidence from Landed Farm Households in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 447-466.
    20. Eric Johnson & Simon Gaechter & Andreas Herrmann, 2006. "Exploring the Nature of Loss Aversion," Discussion Papers 2006-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    21. Fukuma, Shingo & Ikesu, Ryo & Iizuka, Toshiaki & Tsugawa, Yusuke, 2023. "Effect of age-based left-digit bias on stroke diagnosis: Regression discontinuity design," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 334(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy

    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:feb:framed:00133. 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: Franco Daniel Albino (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    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.