Heterogeneous preferences for marine amenities: A choice experiment applied to water quality

Håkan Eggert and Björn Olsson
Additional contact information
Björn Olsson: Department of Economics, School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 40530 GÖTEBORG

No 126, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: The marine environment provides many goods and services dependent upon the quality of coastal waters. In this paper, we represent water quality by three different attributes, fish stock level, bathing water quality, and biodiversity level, and carry out a choice experiment among residents on the Swedish west coast to estimate the economic benefits of improved coastal water quality. We analyze data using the mixed multinomial logit model and explore various distributional assumptions and derive individual-specific parameters. Our results confirm heterogeneous preferences for these attributes and show that respondents have high levels of environmental concern and that substantial values are at stake. The most urgent action according to our findings is firstly to prevent further depletion of marine biodiversity and secondly to improve Swedish cod stocks.

Keywords: choice experiments; mixed logit; stated preference; water quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D61 Q26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2004-02-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-mic, nep-pol and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/2077/2834 (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:hhs:gunwpe:0126

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, Box 640, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jessica Oscarsson ().