Is the Income Elasticity of the Willingness to Pay for Pollution Control Constant?

Edward Barbier, Mikolaj Czajkowski and Nick Hanley

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2017, vol. 68, issue 3, No 10, 663-682

Abstract: Abstract How willingness to pay for environmental quality changes as incomes rise is a central question in several areas of environmental economics. This paper explores both theoretically and empirically whether or not the willingness to pay (WTP) for pollution control varies with income. Our model indicates that the income elasticity of the marginal WTP for pollution reduction is only constant under very restrictive conditions. Our empirical analysis tests the null hypothesis that the elasticity of the WTP for pollution control with respect to income is constant, employing a multi-country contingent valuation study of eutrophication reduction in the Baltic Sea. Our findings reject this hypothesis, and estimate an income elasticity of the WTP for eutrophication control of 0.1–0.2 for low-income respondents and 0.6–0.7 for high-income respondents. Thus, our empirical results suggest that the elasticity is not constant but is always less than one. This has implications for how benefits transfer exercises, and for theoretical explanations of the environmental Kuznets curve.

Keywords: Baltic Sea; Benefits transfer; Environmental Kuznets curve; Eutrophication; Income elasticity of willingness to pay; Non-market valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q51 Q53 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

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Working Paper: Is the income elasticity of the willingness to pay for pollution control constant? (2015)
Working Paper: Is the income elasticity of the willingness to pay for pollution control constant? (2015)
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DOI: 10.1007/s10640-016-0040-4

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