Värdet av god miljöstatus i Västerhavet och svenska Östersjön - Svenskarnas betalningsvilja genom en skatt.

Abstract

This study aims to examine the value of good environmental status in the Swedish parts of the North and Baltic Sea. To achieve this we analyze swedes’ WTP (willingness to pay) through a tax by examining a CV survey made by Anthesis in the year of 2019 by order of the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management. Through an OLS regression this study aims to explain the WTP, by using a short model with demographic and socioeconomic factors and a long model with additional attitude- and behavioral factors. Moreover, this study aims to predict a monetary estimate of the WTP. In addition, we investigate how well our sample represents the population of Sweden, and therefore if we can make assumptions about the population by aggregating the WTP. The study finds that swedes are willing to pay 925-976 SEK on average per person and year, which corresponds to an aggregated WTP of 7.0-7.4 billion SEK per year. In this estimation income is significant in the short regression and distance, worry, donation and inspire is significant in the long model. Through a one sample t test the study shows that four out of six variables are significantly different from the population, which emphasize the importance of caution when inferring suggestions about the WTP for the whole population. By this study we want to contribute to the field of WTP for good environmental status by looking at all the marine water around Sweden, including zero WTP responses and also discussing the importance of caution when making conclusions about the population.