Do EPA administrators recommend environmental policies that citizens want?
Sammanfattning
We investigate whether Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator
preferences regarding improvements in environmental quality differ from citizen preferences.
The scope and significance of the possible difference are assessed by conducting identical
choice experiments (CE) on a random sample of Swedish citizens and a random sample of
administrators working at the Swedish EPA. The experiment concerns two environmental
quality objectives: a Balanced Marine Environment and Clean Air. The EPA administrators
were asked to choose the alternatives they would recommend as a policy, while the citizens
were asked to act as private persons. We find that the rankings of attributes differ between the
two groups, and that there are significant differences in the willingness to pay (WTP) for
particular attributes. EPA administrators have a higher WTP for five out of the seven
attributes, and in some cases the difference is not only significant but also substantial. We also
asked the administrators to motivate their CE choices, and the main motive was ecological
sustainability.
Universitet
University of Gothenburg. School of Business, Economics and Law
Institution
Department of Economics
Samlingar
Fil(er)
Datum
2008-04-14Författare
Carlsson, Fredrik
Kataria, Mitesh
Lampi, Elina
Nyckelord
Choice experiment
environmental policy
administrators
citizens
Publikationstyp
report
ISSN
1403-2465
Serie/rapportnr.
Working Papers in Economics
297
Språk
eng