Protest responses and willingness to pay: attitude toward paying for stormwater pollution abatement

In contingent valuation (CV) surveys, there is often a proportion of indivi duals who are not willing to pay to obtain (avoid) an increase (decrease) i n some attribute of a particular environmental public good. Some of these r espondents might protest an aspect of the CV survey (e.g. payment vehicle) or the behavioral intention (i.e. willingness to pay, WTP) constituting the measure of economic value. Respondents' attitudes toward the behavior of p aying for a particular public good may contribute to the decision to pay in dependent of other explanatory variables, such as the price of the interven tion, household income, and methodological characteristics of the CV survey . Moreover, attitude toward paying for the good may manifest in protest res ponses as a reaction to higher prices and methodological factors (e.g. the payment vehicle). To the extent that protest beliefs are dependent on such matters of survey design, they may be alleviated through changes in CV meth odology. However, to the extent that protest beliefs are a reaction to the act of paying, methodological remedies may not be effective. CV surveys of stormwater pollution abatement were conducted in four Australian state capi tal cities. The surveys differed with respect to the type of pollution abat ement intervention, the payment regime, the vector of prices used in the di chotomous choice question, and the institution responsible for implementing the stormwater pollution intervention. Protest beliefs were measured for a ll respondents irrespective of their responses to the WTP question. Results indicated that attitude toward paying underpinned protest beliefs regardin g the role of government in stormwater management and individual rights to unpolluted waterways. This attitude was present in each city sample despite methodological differences between the CV surveys. Attitude toward paying explained variability in WTP, and was a larger predictor than was price. Ho usehold income was significantly associated with attitude toward paying, an d this relationship was also invariant over city samples. Protest beliefs w ere not independent of either the WTP question or demographic factors, such as household income. Rather, these beliefs were related to WTP through att itudes toward the act of paying for stormwater pollution abatement. Censori ng protest responses in the present study would bias CV samples toward thos e individuals who an favorably disposed toward paying for environmental pub lic goods and those from higher income households. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scienc e B.V. All rights reserved.