{"title":"Measuring Consumer Sustainability Benefits","authors":"R. Inderst, Stefan Thomas","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3916070","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"While consumer sustainability benefits exhibit particular characteristics, e.g., as they are typically based on non-use value, they can be measured by standard instruments as applied in environmental cost-benefit analysis, such as conjoint analysis and contingent valuation. Their measurement may be particularly sensitive to provided context, which makes it necessary to be particularly careful when measuring consumers’ willingness-to-pay. This sensitivity, however, also allows to expand the scope for such benefits and enables an appropriate modelling of the counterfactual. While we advocate for a careful consideration of such more “reflective willingness-to-pay”, we are critical about a blank consideration of externalities and with it consumers’ willingness-to-pay for a change in the behaviour of other consumers.","PeriodicalId":11797,"journal":{"name":"ERN: Regulation (IO) (Topic)","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"ERN: Regulation (IO) (Topic)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3916070","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
While consumer sustainability benefits exhibit particular characteristics, e.g., as they are typically based on non-use value, they can be measured by standard instruments as applied in environmental cost-benefit analysis, such as conjoint analysis and contingent valuation. Their measurement may be particularly sensitive to provided context, which makes it necessary to be particularly careful when measuring consumers’ willingness-to-pay. This sensitivity, however, also allows to expand the scope for such benefits and enables an appropriate modelling of the counterfactual. While we advocate for a careful consideration of such more “reflective willingness-to-pay”, we are critical about a blank consideration of externalities and with it consumers’ willingness-to-pay for a change in the behaviour of other consumers.