Valuing public goods using happiness data: The case of air quality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Levinson, Arik
• 署名单位: Georgetown University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.06.007
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 869-880
• 关键词: Willingness to pay; Stated well-being; pollution; Compensating differential

摘要

This paper describes and implements a method for valuing a time-varying local public good: air quality. It models survey respondents' self-reported happiness as a function of their demographic characteristics, incomes, and the air pollution and weather on the date and in the place they were surveyed. People with higher incomes report higher levels of happiness, and people interviewed on days with worse local air pollution report lower levels of happiness. Combining these two concepts, I derive the average marginal rate of substitution between income and current air quality - a compensating differential for short-term changes in air pollution. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.