Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Papers in Economics,
University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

No 208: Assessing management options for weed control with demanders and non-demanders in a choice experiment

Fredrik Carlsson () and Mitesh Kataria ()
Additional contact information
Fredrik Carlsson: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG
Mitesh Kataria: Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Postal: Box 7013, 750 07 Uppsala

Abstract: The yellow floating heart is a water weed causing nuisance problems in Swedish watercourses. An economic analysis of this is required where various management options are considered. The benefits of a management program are to a large extent recreational. Using a choice experiment we estimate the benefits of a weed management program and perform a cost-benefit analysis of different management programs. In order to be able to distinguish between those who have a demand for a program from those who do not, we introduce a way to distinguish demanders from non-demanders in the choice experiments. The advantage of our suggested approach is that we can more clearly distinguish between conditional and unconditional willingness to pay. In the empirical study we find that a share of the respondents are non-demanders. The demander willingness to pay still justifies cutting the weed in certain places in the lake, given that we use a simple cost-benefit rule.

Keywords: Choice experiments; invasive species; non-demanders; bivariate probit

JEL-codes: Q25; Q26; Q51

17 pages, May 30, 2006

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