Public preferences and valuation of new malaria risk

Mehmet Kutluay, Roy Brouwer (), Haripriya Gundimeda, Nitin Lokhande and Richard Tol
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Haripriya Gundimeda: Department of Economics, IIT Bombay, Mumbai
Nitin Lokhande: Department of Economics, IIT Bombay, Mumbai

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School

Abstract: After years of decline, malaria prevalence may increase in the future due to climate change, and spread to areas that have not experienced the disease before. Any policy that aims to mitigate or adapt to this scenario needs to take into account the economic benefits of avoided malaria (willingness to pay - WTP). Much work has been done on WTP, but not much is known about how WTP changes with the probability of becoming ill. To this end a survey is carried out in Mumbai, India, to compare respondents' WTP to avoid malaria across risky and less-risky areas. We find WTP to be 10% higher in risky areas than in less-risky areas. We also observe WTP to increase by more than 15% between malaria-experienced and naïve respondents, indicating a familiarity premium. These findings indicate higher welfare returns to climate change mitigation policies than previously thought.

Keywords: malaria; willingness to pay; discrete choice experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dcm, nep-env and nep-hea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sus:susewp:1917

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