Which type of policy instrument do citizens and experts prefer? A choice experiment on Swedish marine and water policy
Year: 2018
Type: report
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: In the choice between alternative environmental policy instruments, economists tend to favor policies capable of attaining cost-efficiency, but other considerations may be important to stakeholders. We perform a choice experiment modeled on Swedish water and marine policy to estimate preferences for different types of environmental policy instruments among citizens and municipal experts. To approximate preferences for each instrument per se, choice sets include several attributes that respondents may otherwise view as correlated with instrument type, such as how costs are shared between taxpayers and farmers. In our mixed-logit regressions, both the modal citizen and the modal expert prefer direct regulation and subsidies\nto nutrient trading. Experts weight taxpayer costs less heavily, implying larger WTP\nestimates; in particular, nutrient trading is unlikely to deliver sufficiently large cost savings for experts to prefer it to other instrument types. This potentially explains the low takeup of water quality trading outside the US.
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Interreg
OpenAlex ID: W2910026369