The regional context of infrastructure policy and environmental valuation: the importance of stakeholders' opinions

Abstract

The individual monetary valuation of environmental goods (programmes and policies) by means of contingent valuation (CV) has recently been criticised on the grounds that the values expressed in CV surveys are rather speculative, because the (regional) public debate cannot adequately be mirrored in such a valuation. Besides the development of deliberative valuation techniques, it has been proposed that information on the regional stakeholder groups' viewpoints may help respondents to express more reliable money values (willingness-to-pay, WTP) for environmental policies. It is the intention of the current paper to supplement the usual information presented to respondents with information concerning regional stakeholder groups, as well as on other dimensions of the regional political context of infrastructure policy, taking the example of river restoration in a comparatively small basin, and also on tests designed to show whether this supplementary information results in other WTP bids. The econometric results of the current paper suggest that including such additional information leads to significantly higher WTP bids, presumably because of the improved information basis on which respondents answer to WTP questions. In addition, the relevance of explanatory variables and their interdependencies change which might indicate a change of value formation based on “individual” reasoning to stating more informed “societal” values.

Keywords:

• willingness-to-pay (WTP)
• contingent valuation
• river restoration
• influence of regional stakeholder group information
• regional public debate

Acknowledgements

The current paper is a result of a survey carried out within an ecosystem services valuation study commissioned by Nature Stewardship Council, Styria. The author is thankful for discussion and comments by U. Pöllinger, M. Bliem and M. Jungmeier. Anonymous reviewers provided suggestions for substantial improvements of this paper. All errors are, of course, the responsibility of the author.

Notes

1. The entire questionnaire and descriptions of the programme, all the data and empirical assessments, including econometric estimations, can be sent by the author on request.

2. The full wording of the respective questions of the survey can be provided upon request.

3. We also included debriefing questions regarding the reasons for zero WTP bids in order to account for protest bids. The number of protest bids was generally very low, and the open WTP bid category also attracted only very few respondents.

4. This result may be in contrast to the effects of the “consumer-citizen” dichotomy which suggests that the WTP from a citizen's perspective might not be the same as from the consumer's perspective (Nyborg 2000, Curtis and McConnell 2002, Getzner 2005, Howley et al. 2010). In addition, taxes as the relevant payment vehicle might attract more protest bids, and there might also be some sequencing effects in answering these WTP questions. However, these potential problems were not specifically accounted for in the current study.

5. This aspect points to a potentially interesting future research question. Moderate programmes for hydro-electric-power and nature conservation may more likely attract a majority than more radical nature conservation programmes. As the current study elicited WTP for nature conservation versus hydro-electric-power, there might also be respondents who would be willing to pay for the further extension of hydro-electric-power and for the prevention of radical conservation programmes.