The Public Willingness to Pay for Reducing the Incidence of Hazardous Chemical Spill Accidents by Half in South Korea

Hye-Jeong Lee, Hyo-Jin Kim and Seung-Hoon Yoo ()
Additional contact information
Hye-Jeong Lee: Department of Energy Policy, Graduate School of Energy & Environment, Seoul National University of Science & Technology, 232 Gongreung-Ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul 01811, Korea
Hyo-Jin Kim: Department of Energy Policy, Graduate School of Energy & Environment, Seoul National University of Science & Technology, 232 Gongreung-Ro, Nowon-Gu, Seoul 01811, Korea

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: Hazardous chemical spill (HCS) accidents, which occur due to careless workers, transport accidents, etc., can be harmful to humans. Recently, an average of 96 cases of HCS accidents have taken place in South Korea annually. As a result, the government is trying to reduce the incidence of HCS accidents by 50%. Government officials are seeking information about the value that the enforcement of the reduction plan will bring for the public. This knowledge will help government officials decide whether to implement the reduction plan. This article seeks to acquire information about the public willingness to pay (WTP) for the reduction plan, employing the contingent valuation (CV) technique. For this purpose, a total of 1000 households living in South Korea participated in the CV survey in 2017. The data on the WTP were gathered using a dichotomous choice question and analyzed using the spike model. Forty-five percent of the respondents were willing to accept an increase in income taxes to carry out the reduction plan. The mean household WTP estimate was obtained as KRW 3830 (USD 3.41) per annum. The national value expanded from the sample to the population is worth KRW 74.8 billion (USD 66.6 million) per year. This value implies the public value of the reduction plan and can be applied in policy analysis and decision-making concerning the reduction of the incidence of HCS accidents.

Keywords: hazardous chemical spill accident; public value; willingness to pay; contingent valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2673/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2673/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:8:p:2673-:d:160833

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().