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Is the Environment a Luxury? An Empirical Investigation using Revealed Preferences and Household Production

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Listed:
  • Chiara Martini
  • Silvia Tiezzi

Abstract

This paper addresses the issue of whether environmental quality is a luxury good meaning that its demand increases more than proportionally with respect to income. We use demand analysis and household production to estimate the marginal willingness to pay for improvements in air quality in Italy and the income elasticity of WTP. Only market data on Italian households’ current consumption expenditures from January 1999 to December 2006 merged with a unique air quality index are used. We consistently find that the income elasticity of WTP for environmental quality is very close to one across income groups and WTP decreases as a percentage of income as income increases with interesting implications for environmental policy. Besides contributing to a strand of literature where there is very scant empirical evidence, this paper provides the first attempt at estimating WTP and its income elasticity using revealed preferences and household production.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiara Martini & Silvia Tiezzi, 2010. "Is the Environment a Luxury? An Empirical Investigation using Revealed Preferences and Household Production," Department of Economics University of Siena 599, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    • Handle: RePEc:usi:wpaper:599
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    File URL: http://repec.deps.unisi.it/quaderni/599.pdf
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alexandra-Anca Purcel, 2020. "New insights into the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis in developing and transition economies: a literature survey," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 22(4), pages 585-631, October.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Kaika, Dimitra & Zervas, Efthimios, 2013. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory—Part A: Concept, causes and the CO2 emissions case," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1392-1402.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    household production; conditional and mixed demand systems; integrability; income elasticity of willingness to pay;
    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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