IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0126.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Heterogeneous preferences for marine amenities: A choice experiment applied to water quality

Author

Listed:
  • Eggert, Håkan

    (Department of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University)

  • Olsson, Björn

    (Department of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

The marine environment provides many goods and services dependent upon the quality of coastal waters. In this paper, we represent water quality by three different attributes, fish stock level, bathing water quality, and biodiversity level, and carry out a choice experiment among residents on the Swedish west coast to estimate the economic benefits of improved coastal water quality. We analyze data using the mixed multinomial logit model and explore various distributional assumptions and derive individual-specific parameters. Our results confirm heterogeneous preferences for these attributes and show that respondents have high levels of environmental concern and that substantial values are at stake. The most urgent action according to our findings is firstly to prevent further depletion of marine biodiversity and secondly to improve Swedish cod stocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Eggert, Håkan & Olsson, Björn, 2004. "Heterogeneous preferences for marine amenities: A choice experiment applied to water quality," Working Papers in Economics 126, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/2834
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morgan, Cynthia & Owens, Nicole, 2001. "Benefits of water quality policies: the Chesapeake Bay," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 271-284, November.
    2. repec:bla:jecsur:v:15:y:2001:i:3:p:435-62 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Adamowicz W. & Louviere J. & Williams M., 1994. "Combining Revealed and Stated Preference Methods for Valuing Environmental Amenities," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 271-292, May.
    4. David Hensher & William Greene, 2003. "The Mixed Logit model: The state of practice," Transportation, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 133-176, May.
    5. Train,Kenneth E., 2009. "Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521766555.
    6. David Revelt & Kenneth Train, 1998. "Mixed Logit With Repeated Choices: Households' Choices Of Appliance Efficiency Level," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 647-657, November.
    7. Boxall, Peter C. & Adamowicz, Wiktor L. & Swait, Joffre & Williams, Michael & Louviere, Jordan, 1996. "A comparison of stated preference methods for environmental valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 243-253, September.
    8. Guy Garrod & Kenneth G. Willis, 1999. "Economic Valuation of the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1368.
    9. David F. Layton & Gardner Brown, 2000. "Heterogeneous Preferences Regarding Global Climate Change," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 616-624, November.
    10. Kling, Catherine L., 1991. "Estimating the precision of welfare measures," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 244-259, November.
    11. Nick Hanley & David Bell & Begona Alvarez-Farizo, 2003. "Valuing the Benefits of Coastal Water Quality Improvements Using Contingent and Real Behaviour," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 24(3), pages 273-285, March.
    12. F Alpizar & F Carlsson & P Martinsson, 2003. "Using Choice Experiments for Non-Market Valuation," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 8(1), pages 83-110, March.
    13. R.K. Blamey & J.W. Bennett & J.J. Louviere & M.D. Morrison & J.C. Rolfe, 2002. "Attribute Causality in Environmental Choice Modelling," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 23(2), pages 167-186, October.
    14. Nick Hanley & Robert Wright & Vic Adamowicz, 1998. "Using Choice Experiments to Value the Environment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(3), pages 413-428, April.
    15. Nick Hanley & Susana Mourato & Robert E. Wright, 2001. "Choice Modelling Approaches: A Superior Alternative for Environmental Valuatioin?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 435-462, July.
    16. Louviere,Jordan J. & Hensher,David A. & Swait,Joffre D., 2000. "Stated Choice Methods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521788304, September.
    17. Nunes, Paulo A. L. D. & van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M., 2001. "Economic valuation of biodiversity: sense or nonsense?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 203-222, November.
    18. Sanchirico, James N. & Wilen, James E., 2001. "A Bioeconomic Model of Marine Reserve Creation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 257-276, November.
    19. Krinsky, Itzhak & Robb, A Leslie, 1986. "On Approximating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(4), pages 715-719, November.
    20. Jeff Bennett & Russell Blamey (ed.), 2001. "The Choice Modelling Approach to Environmental Valuation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2028.
    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. Bertram, Christine & Rehdanz, Katrin, 2013. "On the environmental effectiveness of the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 25-40.
    2. Deborah Ellen Lee & Stephen Gerald Hosking & Mario Du Preez, 2015. "Managing Some Motorised Recreational Boating Challenges in South African Estuaries: A Case Study at the Kromme River Estuary," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 83(2), pages 286-302, June.
    3. Paudel, Krishna P. & Caffey, Rex H. & Devkota, Nirmala, 2011. "An Evaluation of Factors Affecting the Choice of Coastal Recreational Activities," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 167-179, May.
    4. Ghermandi, Andrea & Nunes, Paulo A.L.D., 2013. "A global map of coastal recreation values: Results from a spatially explicit meta-analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-15.
    5. Beharry-Borg, Nesha & Scarpa, Riccardo, 2010. "Valuing quality changes in Caribbean coastal waters for heterogeneous beach visitors," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 1124-1139, March.
    6. Tim Taylor & A Longo, 2009. "Valuation of Marine Ecosystem Threshold Effects: Application of Choice Experiments to Value Algal Bloom in the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria," Department of Economics Working Papers 7/09, University of Bath, Department of Economics.
    7. Bastone, Chris & Stewart-Carbines, Megan & Kerr, Geoffrey N. & Sharp, Basil M.H. & Meister, Anton D., 2010. "Understanding values associated with stormwater remediation options in marine coastal ecosystems: A case study from Auckland, New Zealand," 2010 Conference (54th), February 10-12, 2010, Adelaide, Australia 59578, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.

    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. Haghani, Milad & Bliemer, Michiel C.J. & Hensher, David A., 2021. "The landscape of econometric discrete choice modelling research," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    2. F Alpizar & F Carlsson & P Martinsson, 2003. "Using Choice Experiments for Non-Market Valuation," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 8(1), pages 83-110, March.
    3. Siikamaki, Juha & Layton, David F., 2007. "Discrete choice survey experiments: A comparison using flexible methods," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 122-139, January.
    4. Hoyos, David, 2010. "The state of the art of environmental valuation with discrete choice experiments," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 1595-1603, June.
    5. Hoyos Ramos, David, 2010. "Using discrete choice experiments for environmental valuation," BILTOKI 1134-8984, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Economía Aplicada III (Econometría y Estadística).
    6. de Ayala, Amaia & Hoyos, David & Mariel, Petr, 2015. "Suitability of discrete choice experiments for landscape management under the European Landscape Convention," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 79-96.
    7. Catalina M. Torres Figuerola & Antoni Riera Font, 2009. "Defining environmental attributes as external costs in choice experiments: A discussion," CRE Working Papers (Documents de treball del CRE) 2009/1, Centre de Recerca Econòmica (UIB ·"Sa Nostra").
    8. Halkos, George & Galani, Georgia, 2016. "Assessing willingness to pay for marine and coastal ecosystems: A Case Study in Greece," MPRA Paper 68767, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Helen Scarborough & Jeff Bennett, 2012. "Cost–Benefit Analysis and Distributional Preferences," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14376.
    10. Imran Khan & Hongdou Lei & Gaffar Ali & Shahid Ali & Minjuan Zhao, 2019. "Public Attitudes, Preferences and Willingness to Pay for River Ecosystem Services," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-17, October.
    11. Anders Dugstad & Kristine M. Grimsrud & Gorm Kipperberg & Henrik Lindhjem & Ståle Navrud, 2021. "Scope Elasticity of Willingness to pay in Discrete Choice Experiments," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 80(1), pages 21-57, September.
    12. Siikamaki, Juha & Layton, David F., 2006. "Discrete Choice Survey Experiments: A Comparison Using Flexible Models," RFF Working Paper Series dp-05-60, Resources for the Future.
    13. Domínguez-Torreiro, Marcos & Soliño, Mario, 2011. "Provided and perceived status quo in choice experiments: Implications for valuing the outputs of multifunctional rural areas," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2523-2531.
    14. Bart Neuts & Peter Nijkamp & Eveline Van Leeuwen, 2012. "Crowding Externalities from Tourist Use of Urban Space," Tourism Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 649-670, June.
    15. Carole Ropars-Collet & Philippe Goffe & Qods Lefnatsa, 2021. "Does catch-and-release increase the recreational value of rivers? The case of salmon fishing," Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies, Springer, vol. 102(4), pages 393-424, December.
    16. Fredrik Carlsson & Mitesh Kataria, 2008. "Assessing Management Options for Weed Control with Demanders and Non-Demanders in a Choice Experiment," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(3), pages 517-528.
    17. Carole Ropars-Collet & Mélody Leplat & Philippe Le Goffe & Marie Lesueur, 2015. "La pêche professionnelle est-elle un facteur d’attractivité récréative sur le littoral ?," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 66(4), pages 729-754.
    18. De Valck, Jeremy & Vlaeminck, Pieter & Liekens, Inge & Aertsens, Joris & Chen, Wendy & Vranken, Liesbet, 2012. "The sources of preference heterogeneity for nature restoration scenarios," Working Papers 146522, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Centre for Agricultural and Food Economics.
    19. Marit E. Kragt & J.W. Bennett, 2011. "Using choice experiments to value catchment and estuary health in Tasmania with individual preference heterogeneity," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 55(2), pages 159-179, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    choice experiments; mixed logit; stated preference; water quality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D61 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Allocative Efficiency; Cost-Benefit Analysis
    • Q26 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Recreational Aspects of Natural Resources

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0126. 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: Jessica Oscarsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.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.