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The purpose of this paper is to support the development of effective strategies that enhance community water supply systems. The study examined service constraints and willingness to pay for better services in community-managed water supply services using empirical evidence from beneficiaries of a small-town water supply system in Ghana.

A survey design of both descriptive and exploratory research is adopted, the descriptive survey handles the quantitative aspect, while the exploratory survey handles the qualitative aspect. The authors collected data using a structured survey questionnaire from 387 beneficiaries who were public standpipe and domestic users. Descriptive statistics, Kendall's coefficient of concordance and Cragg's two-step model were the methods of analysis employed.

The respondents ranked lack of capacity (managerial) as the topmost constraint of the community-managed water system. The findings indicate that 57% of the beneficiaries were not willing to pay, whiles 43% were willing to pay. Also, results from Cragg's two-step regression model indicate that different sets of factors affect willingness-to-pay and amount-to-pay decisions. The study revealed that while a willingness-to-pay decision is influenced by income, education, marital status and customer service, the estimated-amount-to-pay decision is more influenced by income and education.

Building on the empirical evidence, the findings indicated that the water and sanitation management team can increase the current fee of GH¢ 5.00/1 m³ (≈US$ 0.87) by increasing beneficiaries charge for a bucket of water from GH¢ 0.10p (≈US$ 0.017) to GH¢ 0.21p (≈US$ 0.036) for better services within the community. Importantly, the additional charge should take into consideration income and education which were noted to significantly influence the beneficiary's amount-to-pay decision for better services in the community-managed water supply system.

The chapter investigates: (1) Do married parents efficiently allocate time to children’s health care? (2) Are parents willing to sacrifice consumption for health improvements at an equal rate for all family members? (3) How does family structure affect health trade-offs parents make? (4) Are parental choices consistent with maximization of a single utility function?

A model is specified focusing on how parents allocate resources between consumption and goods that relieve acute illnesses for family members. Equivalent surplus functions measuring parental willingness to pay to relieve acute illnesses are estimated using data from a stated-preference survey.

Results provide limited support for the prediction that married parents allocate time to child health care according to comparative advantage. Valuations of avoided illness vary between family members and are inconsistent with the hypothesis that fathers’ and mothers’ choices reflect a common utility function.

Prior research on children’s health valuation has relied on a unitary framework that is rejected here. Valuation researchers have focused on allocation of resources between parents and children while ignoring allocation of resources among children, whereas results suggest significant heterogeneity in valuation of health of different types of children and of children in different types of households.

Results may provide a justification on efficiency grounds for policies to provide special protection for children’s health and suggest that benefit–cost analyses of policies affecting health should include separate estimates of the benefits of health improvements for children and adults.

One of the most contentious issues concerning benefit–cost analyses of environmental and other regulatory programs has been the valuation of reductions in mortality risks. The conceptual basis for most valuation exercises has been the value of a statistical life (VSL). However, despite decades of both theoretical and empirical research on the meaning and measurement of the VSL concept, there is no consensus concerning the validity of the results it produces in actual applications. In this paper, we review the development and application of the VSL approach and then propose what we believe to be a better way to value changes in mortality hazard.

This chapter reports estimates of consumers’ preferences for plans to improve food safety.

The plans are distinguished based on whether they address the ex ante risk of food borne illness or the ex post effects of the illness. They are also distinguished based on whether they focus on a public good – reducing risk of illness for all consumers or allowing individual households to reduce their private risks of contracting a food borne pathogen.

Based on a National Survey conducted in 2007 using the Knowledge Network internet panel, our findings indicate consumers favor ex ante risk reductions and are willing to pay approximately $250 annually to reduce the risk of food borne illness. Moreover, they prefer private to public approaches and would not support efforts to reduce the severity of cases of illness over risk reductions.

This study is the first research that allows a comparison of survey respondents’ choices between public and private mechanisms for ex ante risk reductions.

This paper aims to report on homebuyers’ preferences and willingness to pay for installed home photovoltaic systems. Their influence on the market position of a dwelling is relatively unknown. Considering that expected lifespan of photovoltaic systems is at least 25 years, it is likely that many dwellings with a photovoltaic system will enter the housing market.

Few houses with installed photovoltaic systems have been sold in the market to date. Lack of real market data imposes a method based on the stated preference data. Therefore, the general preferences toward photovoltaic systems are determined by a discrete choice model based on responses of 227 homebuyers in the Eindhoven region, The Netherlands. Further, the model estimates were used to assess the indirect willingness to pay for home photovoltaic systems. This initial willingness to pay is further reassessed with the direct willingness to pay collected in an open-ended questionnaire format.

Results of the model show that the homebuyers’ preferences for home photovoltaic systems are large and significant. In addition to general preferences, this article reports on the taste heterogeneity carried out by separating observations based on the respondents’ characteristics. For example, photovoltaic systems are more appealing to homebuyers in more urban or central neighbourhoods. Further, the results of the direct survey lead to the conclusion that people are probably willing to pay close to the replacement value of the system and only 22 per cent of all respondents did not want to pay anything for the installed photovoltaic system.

These findings are exploratory and they raise a number of questions for further investigations, such as those regarding the real estate value of the installed photovoltaic systems. The reported findings must be regarded as local, thus further research is necessary to understand the impact on European housing markets.

Preferences and willingness to pay for home photovoltaic systems can provide a variety of economic, social and political recommendations to different interested parties such as homeowners, buyers, realtors, retailers, energy companies and governments. For instance, a homeowner would like to know what would be the effect of a photovoltaic system on the housing market.

As per the knowledge of authors, this is the first paper to estimate the impact of an installed photovoltaic system on housing choice, measured by stated choice data in the local housing market. It expands the existing body of knowledge for increasingly important issues of valuing and measuring preferences for photovoltaic systems installed on dwellings.

Consumers are giving greater attention to the selection of food due to the improvement in income and urbanization. Meanwhile, in recent years, the vegetables' farmers in Malaysia have been reported using an excessive quantity of pesticides. The vegetables exported to Singapore and China have been rejected in 2018 and 2017 due to the presence of excessive levels of pesticides. Such incidences have created massive concern to improve the safety standard of the vegetable industry. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate consumers' willingness to pay for food safety attributes of tomato.

Discrete choice experiments has been used, and 490 respondents have completed the survey.

Results suggested that consumers were willing to pay RM4.18 more for wholesome tomato relative to slightly damage tomato. Consumers also were willing to pay RM2.75 more for organic tomato relative to inorganic tomato. They were also willing to pay RM2.30 and RM1.29 more for certified and tomato sold at supermarket relative to uncertified and tomato sold at the wet market, respectively. The willingness to pay for safety attributes of tomato also varied according to the income, age and education level of the consumers.

If the farmers can respond effectively to the changes in consumers demand, it can be translated into business opportunities.

This research able to provide relevant information related to the consumers' willingness to pay for food safety attributes of tomato in Malaysia.

Negative effects of crime encompass several different dimensions. As a result, there is no existing methodology capable of dealing with all the relevant issues simultaneously and the interpretation of the estimates currently available lacks theoretical foundation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a unified view of the meaning and relationship between the various dimensions of the welfare cost of crime and violence available in the literature.

The paper develops a theoretical model of crime and illustrates the different interpretations of welfare costs of crime and violence within this unified framework. This theoretical benchmark is then used as a benchmark to review the empirical literature on the topic.

The analysis suggests that the most commonly estimated dimension of the welfare cost of crime − related to the total loss associated with crime − although relevant as an illustrative tool, is not very useful from a policy perspective. The literature should therefore move closer to the idea of estimating marginal costs and benefits in order to become policy relevant.

Policy-oriented research related to optimal law enforcement should move in the direction of estimating the marginal willingness to pay of individuals for reductions in crime. This should be compared to the marginal cost of alternative policies in order to guide public policy in the area.

This survey rationalizes in economic terms the estimates from the existing methodologies, highlights some of their limitations, and points out potential directions for future research. It provides one of the first unified views of the various dimensions of welfare cost of crime and violence that have been presented in the literature.

In recent years, there has been a big increase in the use of ethical attributes as marketing appeals. The purpose of this paper is to examine consumers’ willingness to pay for three selected ethical attributes, namely “Organic”, “Recyclable Packaging” and “Fairtrade” in monetary terms.

A modified choice-based experimental design with manipulation of the key constructs was used to estimate the mean value of how much consumers are willing to pay for the selected attributes attached to a box of premium chocolates. The results are based on the responses of a total of 208 consumers.

Of the three attributes, “Recyclable Packaging” has the strongest influence on the purchase decision, although this attribute generates the least additional value. The aggregated result shows that although consumers are willing to pay more for the product with ethical attributes than the one that is without, still around a half of them are not willing to pay more. In terms of demographics, the results show no significant differences between the two genders or different age groups in their willingness to pay for ethical attributes. As might be expected, willingness to pay was correlated with the level of consciousness of the ethical attributes.

The findings of this study help management to think practically about the value consumers willing to pay for the selected attributes. The results show a significant synergy in a combination of ethical attributes in products.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for organics.

A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data at five retail stores in metropolitan Bangkok. Exploratory factor analysis and the double-bound contingent valuation method were used for analysis.

Results indicate WTP premiums of 88, 51 and 51 per cent for kale, jasmine rice and pork, respectively. Analysis indicates that respondents are willing to pay a premium if they have already purchased organic products, have good health, strong ethical and environmental concerns, think that organic products provide greater quality and health benefits, and reside in the city. Respondents with children, however, are less likely to pay a premium for organic products. Analysis also indicates that the price premium hinders purchase.

Efforts should be made by policymakers, together with marketers and producers, to lower the price of organic products to attract more consumers.

To enlarge the organic market, one must understand consumers’ preferences for organic products and the premium they will pay for them. This is not well-researched. Though several studies have investigated consumers’ behaviour towards environmentally friendly products in Thailand, there is little research on WTP. This lack is a major impediment to the growth of organic consumption and the development of organic product markets.

The purpose of the study is to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for major chemical fertilizers and revisit the fertilizer subsidy policy in Nepal.

We surveyed 619 households from six districts and assessed farmers’ WTP for urea, diammonium phosphate (DAP) and muriate of potash (MOP) during the fertilizer crisis. Our study elicited the WTP for fertilizers when fertilizers were not available on the market. A modified payment card approach was used to elicit farmers’ WTP.

The study found that farmers who buy fertilizer from agrodealers, buy from gray markets, have bank accounts, are willing to take a risk, have strong or medium economic conditions and incur higher travel costs have a higher WTP for fertilizers. Farmers in sampled areas, on average, are willing to pay 31 percent more for urea, 13 percent more for DAP and 19 percent more for MOP than the government recommended fertilizer price.

The design of the payment card and the estimation techniques used to fit the valuation function are likely to influence WTP.

Overall, literature on households’ WTP for fertilizers in developing countries is scarce. Our study contributes to the knowledge of WTP for fertilizers.