Exploring the effect of psychometric variables on willingness to pay for marine ecosystem services: A survey in Japan

Kazumi Wakita, Hisashi Kurokura, Taro Oishi, Zhonghua Shen and Ken Furuya

Ecosystem Services, 2019, vol. 35, issue C, 130-138

Abstract: This study examined psychometric variables that would make differences in people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for conserving marine ecosystem services (MES) based on a large-scale survey in Japan. Among various MES, we selected “the ocean’s CO2 absorption capacity” as an invisible object having little connection to people’s daily lives. At the opposite end of the invisible services, “fishery resources (FR)” were taken as visible objects for comparison to make understanding the valuation of invisible services more explicit. For both the 10-year and the 100-year scenarios, the marginal WTP to prevent a 1% CO2 increase by maintaining the ocean’s CO2 absorption capacity was larger than that to prevent a 1% FR decrease. The analysis revealed that the respondents with a higher WTP to conserve MES had a higher public spirit and connection with people. On the other hand, free riders had a lower public spirit and connection with both humans and non-humans. These findings are consistent with the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Value-Belief-Norm Theory. That is, strong altruistic values, subjective norms, and biospheric values positively influence the WTP for the environment. The results could serve as a reference for stakeholders considering the introduction of payment for MES.

Keywords: Green infrastructure; Urban ecosystem services; Sustainability; Urban development; Urban resilience; Non-market valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:35:y:2019:i:c:p:130-138

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.12.003

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