Willingness to pay for environmental quality and social capital influence in Sweden
French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists ; Marbuah, George
2015
22 p.
behaviour ; environment ; environmental protection ; environmental pollution ; social capital
Working Papers
WP 2016.13
Environment
English
Bibliogr.
"The growing recognition of social capital as an important parameter necessary for shaping pro-environmental behaviour and attitudes is well established in the literature and continues to engage the attention of policymakers, academics and citizens in many jurisdictions. In this paper, we contribute to this strand of literature by investigating the extent to which various elements of social capital influences Swedish public's tendency to contribute financially or through lifestyle changes in order to protect the environment. Using data from the latest wave of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) on the environment in 2010, we explore empirically the link between individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) and social capital influence using an ordered logistic model. The results show, that, individuals in Sweden are fairly willing to pay for the environment and that this decision is principally and significantly influenced by elements of social capital. In particular, we find quite robust results to show that social and institutional trust, environmental group membership among related civic participation activities and adherence to environmental norms significantly impacts the probability of individuals' decision to sacrifice toward environmental sustainability by paying higher environmental taxes, prices or through standard of living adjustments."
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