nep-dcm New Economics Papers
on Discrete Choice Models
Issue of 2020‒06‒29
six papers chosen by
Edoardo Marcucci
Università degli studi Roma Tre

  1. Abating Ammonia Emissions: Farmers’ Willingness to Use Slurry Acidification Techniques during Spreading By Thiermann, Insa; Latacz-Lohmann, U.
  2. Willingness to Pay for Better Air Quality: The case of China By Liu, L-Q.; Yin, Z-L.; Xie, B-C.; Zhou, W.
  3. Relationships Between Health and Environmental Information on the Willingness to Pay for Functional Foods: The Case of a New Aloe Vera Based Product By Elena Castellari; Elena Claire Ricci; Stefanella Stranieri; Stephan Marette; Martina Sarnataro; Claudio Soregaroli
  4. Risk Perception, Learning and Willingness to Pay to Reduce Heart Disease Risks By Mark Dickie; Shelby Gerking; Wiktor Adamowicz; Marcella Veronesi
  5. Cooking Fuel Choice, Indoor Air Quality and Child Mortality in India By Basu, Arnab K.; Byambasuren, Tsenguunjav; Chau, Nancy H.; Khanna, Neha
  6. Assessing the Impacts of Vehicle Emissions and Safety Regulations By Bert van Wee

  1. By: Thiermann, Insa; Latacz-Lohmann, U.
    Abstract: This article seeks to determine farmers’ willingness to apply slurry acidification during spreading. Slurry acidification is a novel technique to reduce ammonia emissions, which has been pioneered in Denmark. In an online discrete choice survey of German livestock farmers, the respondents were asked to choose between different policy schemes to promote the use of acidification techniques and the status quo. The support schemes were characterised by the following attributes: cost share, expected emission reduction as well as reliefs from, and tightenings of, the German Fertilizer Ordinance. In addition, the character-istics of farmers and farms were elicited. The data were estimated using a mixed logit model. The esti-mated probability of farmers to choose a support scheme is 89 %. All policy variables are significant for acceptance and show the expected signs. Emission reduction is important to farmers and increases the chances of participation in a support scheme significantly. Furthermore, the cost share offered and the exemption from the requirement to incorporate slurry immediately after spreading have a significantly positive impact on farmers’ willingness to participate. By contrast, the higher the nitrogen load factor by which the extra nitrogen in the slurry must be counted in a farmer’s fertilizer planning (a provision of the German Fertilizer Ordinance), the lower the probability of participation. Concerning farm and farmer characteristics, farmers with grazing livestock show lower acceptance as do sow holders. Older farmers and better educated farmers are more likely to participate.
    Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management
    Date: 2020–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aesc20:303701&r=all
  2. By: Liu, L-Q.; Yin, Z-L.; Xie, B-C.; Zhou, W.
    Abstract: Air pollution is a big threat to human beings and has attract worldwide attention from governments and scholars. Based on the survey of happiness in China, this paper attempts to analyze the impact of local air quality on the happiness of individuals, and to evaluate the monetary value of mitigating air pollution. Through merging individual happiness data in a nationally representative survey with daily air quality index (AQI) according to the date and location of each respondent, it calculates the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) between air quality and income, and then estimates respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for better air quality. Moreover, it has further explored the differences of WTPs among groups. This study reaches the conclusion that happiness is positively associated with income but negatively correlated with air pollution. Besides, individual happiness is heavily influenced by income, age, gender, health condition, marital status and other variables. Furthermore, WTPs differ greatly among groups and the estimated average WTP of whole sample is 549.36RMB(or 0.90% of annual household income) per year per family for one unit reduction in AQI.
    Keywords: Happiness, Willingness to pay, Air pollution, China
    JEL: L94
    Date: 2020–05–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2042&r=all
  3. By: Elena Castellari (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Elena Claire Ricci (Università degli Studi di Verona); Stefanella Stranieri (Università degli studi di Milano [Milano]); Stephan Marette (ECO-PUB - Economie Publique - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - AgroParisTech); Martina Sarnataro (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Claudio Soregaroli (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)
    Abstract: There is an increasing interest in healthy and sustainable product characteristics. Consumers determine their dietary intake and frame production systems with their choices. However, little is known about the relationships between health and environmental information in influencing these choices, especially when considering functional foods. This study assessed the influence of health-related and environmental-friendliness-related product information on the willingness to pay (WTP) for functional foods. To this end, a WTP elicitation experiment was set up using a jam-like fruit compote enriched with Aloe vera gel. Participants were provided with different messages related to the health and environmental benefits of Aloe vera products, and were also asked to taste the product. Results indicated that providing new information significantly increased the WTP for the enriched compote. This increase was significant for both health and environmentally based benefits, with the health message leading to a higher WTP. Combining health and environmental messages produced an additive effect on WTP which was independent of the sequential order in which the two messages were given. Results contrasted the view that health messages are the main drivers of WTP, and open a broader range of communication in terms of marketing strategies and sustainable policy objectives.
    Abstract: Il existe un intérêt croissant pour les caractéristiques de santé et durabilité des produits. Cependant, on sait peu de choses sur les relations entre les informations sur la santé et l'environnement et leur influence sur les choix des consommateurs, en particulier en ce qui concerne les aliments « fonctionnels ». Cette étude a évalué l'influence des informations sur la santé et à l'environnement, sur le consentement à payer pour les aliments fonctionnels. Cette expérience se focalise sur une compote de fruit enrichie en Aloe Vera. Les participants ont reçu différents messages concernant les avantages pour la santé et l'environnement des produits à base d'Aloe Vera et ont également été invités à les goûter. Les résultats ont indiqué que la révélation de nouvelles informations augmentait considérablement le consentement à payer (CAP) de la compote enrichie. Cette augmentation est significative tant avec les informations sur la santé qu'avec les informations sur l'environnement, avec le message sur la santé conduisant à un CAP plus élevé. La combinaison des messages relatifs à la santé et à l'environnement a produit un effet additif sur le CAP, indépendant de l'ordre séquentiel dans lequel les deux messages ont été révélés.
    Keywords: food choices,functional food,health information,choice experiment,sustainability,environmental information
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02627431&r=all
  4. By: Mark Dickie (University of Central Florida); Shelby Gerking (Tilburg University); Wiktor Adamowicz (University of Alberta); Marcella Veronesi (Department of Economics (University of Verona))
    Abstract: The paper investigates the validity of individuals’ perceptions of heart disease risks, and examines how information and risk perceptions affect marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) to reduce risk, using data from a stated preference survey. Results indicate that risk perceptions individuals held before receiving risk information are plausibly related to objective risk factors and reflect individual-specific information not found in aggregate measures of objective risk. After receiving information, individuals’ updates of prior risk assessments are broadly consistent with Bayesian learning. Perceived heart disease risks thus satisfy construct validity and provide a valid basis for inferring MWTP to reduce risk. Estimating MWTP based on objective rather than subjective risks causes misleading inferences about benefits of risk reduction. An empirical case study shows that benefits are 36% to 62% higher when estimated using objective rather than subjective risks, showing the importance of employing risk perception information to improve validity of benefit measures.
    Keywords: risk perception, willingness to pay, subjective probability, information, Bayesian, heart disease
    JEL: D61 I12 I38 J13 Q51 Q58
    Date: 2020–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:11/2020&r=all
  5. By: Basu, Arnab K.; Byambasuren, Tsenguunjav; Chau, Nancy H.; Khanna, Neha
    Abstract: Indoor air pollution (IAP)–predominantly from the use of solid fuel for cooking– is a global health threat, particularly for women and young children, and one of the leading causes of infant deaths worldwide in developing countries. We estimate the causal effect of cooking fuel choice on infant mortality in India, focusing on children under five years of age using pooled cross-sectional data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) over the period 1992–2016. To address the potential endogeneity in the relationship between fuel choice and mortality, we instrument for cooking fuel choice using a speed of change in forest cover and ownership status of agricultural land, which induce significant variations in fuel type. We find that cooking fuel choice has a statistically significant impact on under-five and neonatal mortality, raising the mortality risk by 4.9 percent. We also find that the past literature has overestimated the association between under-five mortality and polluting fuel use by about 0.6 percentage points or equivalently, 152,000 deaths per year nationally. Our result is robust to a set of alternative specifications with the inclusion of various controls and different estimation strategies.
    Keywords: cooking fuel,indoor air pollution,infant mortality,India
    JEL: I18 N35 Q53
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:560&r=all
  6. By: Bert van Wee (Delft University of Technology)
    Abstract: This paper discusses how regulations can determine environmental and safety outcomes in transport systems. It explores the relationships between regulations and direct and indirect costs, and between regulations and benefits. It also discusses the ethical issues, such as the fact that cost-benefit analysis evaluates welfare effects but tends to ignore equity issues.
    Date: 2019–11–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:itfaab:2019/07-en&r=all

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