Trading-off health risk and latency: Evidence from water pollution in Bangladesh

David Maddison, Eleanor Field, Zubaida Choudhury () and Unai Pascual ()
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Zubaida Choudhury: Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

No 45.2009, Environmental Economy and Policy Research Working Papers from University of Cambridge, Department of Land Economics

Abstract: The Ganges Delta of Bangladesh faces a major environmental and development problem from arsenic groundwater contamination. Here we address the rural population’s health preferences and estimate how much a given risk of arsenicosis would have to be postponed to make that risk acceptable. We also derive implicit rates of time preference associated with this health hazard based on an experimental field study in Bangladesh. Results suggest that households exposed to arsenic contaminated water do trade-off risk against latency of developing arsenicosis. The results can also be interpreted as if households face a time-varying (hyperbolic) pure rate of time preference.

Keywords: Time varying discounting; Water pollution; Arsenic contamination; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009, Revised 2009
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev, nep-env and nep-hea
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