Making or buying environmental public goods: do consumers care?

Douadia Bougherara (1, 2) , Sandrine Costa (3) , Mario Teisl (4)

1 SMART-LERECO - Structures et Marché Agricoles, Ressources et Territoires
2 LAMETA - Laboratoire Montpelliérain d'Économie Théorique et Appliquée
3 UMR MOISA - Marchés, Organisations, Institutions et Stratégies d'Acteurs
4 University of Maine

Firms may voluntary abate pollution using one of two options: internalizing its own external effects and incuring abatement costs ("making") or delegating environmental protection by purchasing offsets ("buying"). We aim to elicit consumers' WTP for producers' use of the "making" option as compared to the "buying" option, controlling for spatial effects (joint local public goods) and level of GHG emissions. Using a stated choice survey with 722 respondents, we find consumers are more willing to pay for a "making" policy. Consumers do not significantly care for the producers' use of offsets when the level of local externalities is controlled for.

Mots clés: offsets; stated choice; willingness to pay

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Douadia Bougherara, Sandrine Costa, Mario Teisl. Making or buying environmental public goods: do consumers care?. Land Economics, 2013, 89 (4), pp.767-781. ⟨10.3368/le.89.4.767⟩. ⟨hal-01208864⟩