Estimating Willingness-to-Pay for Water Quality in the US
In this paper, we evaluate potential benefits of drinking water infrastructure investments in the United States. We first estimate willingness-to-pay for high-quality drinking water using consumer avoidance behavior in response to health-based drinking water quality violations. We find a modest but statistically significant increase in bottled water purchases in the year in which a county has at least one active violation. We then estimate a household-level discrete choice model of drinking water. We find that the average household is willing to pay $162 per year to avoid a one standard deviation decrease in water quality. We additionally find that WTP for bottled water increases in income. We use these estimates to evaluate several counterfactual scenarios. In a scenario in which the United States’ water infrastructure deteriorates to the levels of Flint, MI in 2014, we find that US households would be willing to spend, in aggregate, $160 billion per year to access safe drinking water. This total is 41% higher than annual US public spending on water infrastructure, suggesting that consumer preferences strongly justify major increases in water infrastructure investments in the United States
Year of publication: |
[2022]
|
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Authors: | Flores-Golfin, Felipe ; Gunn, Angela |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Subject: | USA | United States | Zahlungsbereitschaftsanalyse | Willingness to pay | Wasserversorgung | Water supply | Schweden | Sweden | Gewässerbelastung | Water pollution |
Saved in:
freely available
Extent: | 1 Online-Ressource (37 p) |
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Type of publication: | Book / Working Paper |
Language: | English |
Notes: | Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments May 2, 2022 erstellt |
Other identifiers: | 10.2139/ssrn.4099124 [DOI] |
Classification: | Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects ; Q53 - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste ; Q58 - Government Policy |
Source: | ECONIS - Online Catalogue of the ZBW |
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013290123
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