Abstract:

The paper proposes a sociological perspective on stated willingness to pay (WTP) for public goods that goes beyond a basic economic view. Thus we discuss three extensions of an economic model consisting of sociological and social-psychological determinants of stated WTP. While the economic model includes income and use of the public good in question, the extensions comprise variables representing attitudes, aspects of collective action and norms. We test the effect of these variables on the likelihood to be willing to pay using data from a contingent valuation and a choice experiment that were implemented to assess the benefits people would derive from changes in forest biodiversity in Lower Saxony, Germany. The empirical evidence supports all three sociological extensions. In each case, they show a higher explanatory power compared to the basic economic model. The results particularly underline the relevance of normative factors for WTP decisions.

KEYWORDS: attitudes, collective action, forest biodiversity, norms