Environmental attitudes and place identity as determinants of preferences for ecosystem services

Michela Faccioli, Mikolaj Czajkowski, Klaus Glenk and Julia Martin-Ortega

Ecological Economics, 2020, vol. 174, issue C

Abstract: Stated preference methods are frequently employed to measure people's willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem services. However, these techniques are also criticized for following a simplified approach, which often ignores the role of complex psychological and sociological factors, such as general environmental attitudes and place identity beliefs. By means of a discrete choice experiment exercise, we explored the influence of general environmental attitudes and place identity perceptions on WTP, taking peatland restoration in Scotland as a case study. Our research adds to the existing literature by providing a more nuanced picture of the determinants of WTP and by exploring and mapping the distribution of the estimated welfare measures. Our results, obtained from the estimation of hybrid choice models, show that people with more positive environmental attitudes and greater attachment to peatlands and Scotland tend to display higher WTP for peatland restoration. However, differences exist across respondents, depending on their socio-demographic profile and the geographical area. A better understanding of the heterogeneity of preferences for ecosystem services is helpful to guide more efficient policy design and to inform policy-makers about the distributional impacts of planned policies for equity considerations in project appraisal.

Keywords: Environmental valuation; Discrete choice experiments; Environmental attitudes; Place identity; Hybrid choice models; Peatlands; Scotland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D6 D91 Q20 Q51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:174:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919308626

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106600

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