Are Italians Willing to Pay for Agricultural Environmental Safety? A Stated Choice Approach

Chiara Travisi () and Peter Nijkamp

No 24988, 84th Seminar, February 8-11, 2004, Zeist, The Netherlands from European Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: The widespread use of pesticides in agriculture provides a particularly complex pattern of multidimensional negative side-effects, ranging from food safety related effects to the deterioration of farmland ecosystems. The assessment of the economic implications of such negative processes is fraught with many uncertainties. This paper presents results of an empirical study recently conducted in the North of Italy aimed at estimating the value of reducing the multiple impacts of pesticide use. This type of analysis is rather novel in Italy. A statistical technique known as choice modelling is used here in combination with contingent valuation techniques. The experimental design of choice modelling provides a natural tool for tackling simultaneously the economic dimensions of several negative environmental effects associated with agrochemicals use. In particular, the paper addresses the reduction of farmland biodiversity, groundwater contamination and human intoxication. The resulting estimates show that, on average, Italians consumers are prone to accept substantial price mark-ups for agricultural goods (in particular, foodstuff) produced in environmentally benign ways.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/24988/files/sp04tr01.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:eaae84:24988

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.24988

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 84th Seminar, February 8-11, 2004, Zeist, The Netherlands from European Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().