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The Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection: Are Developing Economies Different?

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  • Dorsch, Michael

Abstract

This paper explores the micro-foundations of public policy over environmental protection in developing economies by examining individual-level preferences for economically costly pollution abatement. The paper empirically investigates individuals' marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for stronger environmental protection, analyzing nearly 24,000 survey responses, from 24 developing economies, to environmental questions from the 2005-2008 wave of the World Values Survey. I analyze the probability that an individual states she is WTP for further environmental protection depending on her individual-level characteristics and her country's characteristics. The main results to emerge from the analysis include: (i) perceived environmental problems that are local do not determine MWTP, where as perceived problems that are global do, (ii) self-identification as a world citizen is the strongest determinant of demand for greater environmental protection, indicating that motivation to contribute to a global public good is not a strictly post-material notion, and (iii) the primary determinants of MWTP are not qualitatively different from those among respondents in advanced economies. The results pose a challenge to the objective problems, subjective values response to the critique of the post-materialism hypothesis. It appears that the WTP for environmental protection in developing economies follows from subjective values that are universal, rather than from objective problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorsch, Michael, 2011. "The Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection: Are Developing Economies Different?," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 24, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gdec11:24
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    Cited by:

    1. Sara Sousa, 2021. "Environmental Taxation in Portugal: A Contribution to Sustainability," Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics, in: Mehmet Huseyin Bilgin & Hakan Danis & Ender Demir & Sofia Vale (ed.), Eurasian Economic Perspectives, pages 369-382, Springer.
    2. Chankrajang, Thanyaporn & Muttarak, Raya, 2017. "Green Returns to Education: Does Schooling Contribute to Pro-Environmental Behaviours? Evidence from Thailand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 434-448.
    3. Joseph Anthony L. Reyes, 2021. "How Different Are the Nordics? Unravelling the Willingness to Make Economic Sacrifices for the Environment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-31, January.
    4. Ercolano, Salvatore & Gaeta, Giuseppe Lucio & Romano, Oriana, 2014. "Environmental tax reform and individual preferences: An empirical analysis on European micro data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-11.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental protection policy; Political preferences; Global public goods; World Values Survey; Developing economies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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