Profile

Career

Research

Overview

Description of PhD

Title: Public Willingness to Pay for Local and Global Environmental Benefits using Choice Modelling

Supervisor(s): Dr. Jim Smart, Professor Mette Termansen, Dr. Klaus Hubacek

TAC: Dr. Jim Smart, Professor Mette Termansen, Dr. Klaus Hubacek, Dr. Colin McClean

Funding: White Rose Studentship

Description of Thesis

Many environmental benefits exhibit characteristics more akin to public goods. This makes environmental benefits difficult to price in the marketplace. Policymakers therefore often find difficulties in determining the correct public valuation of environmental benefits, with potentially severe consequences for aligning policy for the delivery of environmental benefits with the public WTP (willingness to pay) for service delivery.

Choice modelling techniques were used to obtain the British public’s monetary valuation of two environmental benefits; reductions in CO2 emissions implemented by planting Poplar trees either locally in Nidderdale or elsewhere in the UK and reductions in the flood risk to the city of York implemented by filling in drainage ditches in peat moorland in the Yorkshire Dales.  People from across Yorkshire were presented with choice experiment questionnaires from which they are asked to select from a number of competing options, with such options containing different levels of CO2 reduction (implemented locally and nationally) and different levels of flood risk reduction available at a range of different prices.  WTP for these environmental benefits is revealed through the implicit trade-offs people make between different environmental benefit levels and the price level during the selection of choice card options.

Choice experiment data was analysed using conditional logit, latent class and random parameter logit models.  Results reveal a wide variety of preferences amongst respondents for reducing CO2 emissions through local and national tree planting as well as for reducing the flood risk to York.  Part of the preference variety is explained according to respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics such as age, level of educational attainment and place of residency.  Politicians therefore need to take into account divergent valuations of these environmental benefits when designing policy concerning the provision of such benefits.

Publications

Selected publications

Drake, B., Hubacek, K. (2007) What to expect from a greater geographic dispersion of wind farms? - A risk portfolio approach. Energy Policy 35: 3999-4008.

Drake, B., Smart, J.C.R., Termansen, M., Hubacek, K. (2010) Public Willingness to Pay for Production of Local and Global Ecosystem Services, in Proceedings of the ISEE Conference 2010 – International Society for Ecological Economics, August 22-25, 2010, University of Oldenburg and University of Bremen, Germany: International Society for Ecological Economics.