Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Ernest Zampelli, The Catholic University of America; Steven Yen, National Taiwan University

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
2021midata.zip application/zip 922.7 KB 12/20/2024 03:54:AM

Project Citation: 

Zampelli, Ernest, and Yen, Steven. Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-12-20. https://doi.org/10.3886/E213822V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Prior studies have consistently shown that individuals who are environmentally conscious and concerned are more likely to be willing to pay higher taxes and willing to pay higher prices to protect the environment than individuals who are not. None, however, are capable of examining whether they are more likely to be willing to pay both higher taxes and higher prices. Additionally, the studies rarely provide estimates of the probabilities of being willing to pay, and hence offer policymakers no insight into the actual extent of public support for higher taxes and/or higher prices to protect the environment. This paper is intended to fill in these gaps. We assume that an individual’s willingness to pay higher taxes and willingness to pay higher prices are jointly determined by a common set of exogenous factors and are statistically formulated as a bivariate ordered probit model, the estimation of which allows us to examine not only marginal probabilities but also joint probabilities which, up to this point, has not been possible. Reported results indicate that for the United States there is currently little chance that a majority of the public will support higher prices, a smaller chance of a majority supporting higher taxes, and a still smaller chance that a majority will support both higher taxes and higher prices to protect the environment. This is true even for individuals who are most concerned about the environment, adhere to pro-environmental beliefs and views, purposely engage in pro-environmental behavior, and are affected directly by environmental problems.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Willingness to pay higher taxes; Willingness to pay higher prices ; Environmental Protection
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 2021 – 2021 (2021 General Social Surveys)
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 2023 – 2024
Universe:  View help for Universe Adults 18+ years of age living in United States.
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) survey data

Methodology

Sampling:  View help for Sampling Nationally representative sample. 
Data Source:  View help for Data Source General Social Surveys
Weights:  View help for Weights Weight recommended by GSS used in all analyses.
Unit(s) of Observation:  View help for Unit(s) of Observation Individuals
Geographic Unit:  View help for Geographic Unit US geographic region

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Published Versions

V1 [2024-12-20]

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