Abstract
Nature-based solutions (NBS) provide a promising means to a climate resilient future. To guide investments in NBS, stated preference studies have become a common tool to evaluate the benefits of NBS in developing countries. Due to subsistence lifestyles and generally lower incomes, SP studies in developing countries increasingly use time payments as an alternative to the traditionally implemented money payments. It remains unclear, however, how time values should be converted into money values, how the payment affects willingness to pay (WTP) estimates, and how this influence varies across settings with different levels of market integration. We compare the results of choice experiments that use either time or money payments and that are implemented in urban and rural Ghana. The choice experiments target to value different NBS aimed at erosion prevention and other ecosystem service benefits along the highly erosion prone Ghanaian coastline. Time payments are converted into monetary units using two generic wage-based conversion rates and one novel individual-specific non-wage-based conversion rate. We find higher WTP estimates for the time payments. Moreover, we find that the underlying implicit assumptions related to the currently commonly applied generic wage-based conversion rates do not hold. Finally, we find higher levels of market integration and smaller WTP disparities in the urban site, providing evidence that market integration allows for convergence of WTP estimates. These results provide guidance on the accurate estimation of NBS benefits through the implementation of stated preference studies with time payments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 686077 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-21 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Frontiers in Environmental Science |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue number | July |
| Early online date | 22 Jul 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are grateful for funding from IUCN-NL and NWO-WOTRO through the Urbanising Deltas of the World programme, project number W07.69.206. We are also grateful for the funds received for the open access publication fee from the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Funding Information:
We also thank our project partners, The Development Institute (Ken Kinney, Senyo Adzah and Tracy Commodore) and University of Ghana (Prof. Kwasi Appeaning Addo, Prof. Barnabas Amisigo and Edem Mahu), for the fruitful collaboration and support in the field. A special thanks to Researchlime (Barnabas Apom) and the 24 enumerators for the hard work and participation in the data collection activities.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2021 Hagedoorn, Koetse and van Beukering.
Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Funding
We are grateful for funding from IUCN-NL and NWO-WOTRO through the Urbanising Deltas of the World programme, project number W07.69.206. We are also grateful for the funds received for the open access publication fee from the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. We also thank our project partners, The Development Institute (Ken Kinney, Senyo Adzah and Tracy Commodore) and University of Ghana (Prof. Kwasi Appeaning Addo, Prof. Barnabas Amisigo and Edem Mahu), for the fruitful collaboration and support in the field. A special thanks to Researchlime (Barnabas Apom) and the 24 enumerators for the hard work and participation in the data collection activities.
Keywords
- discrete choice experiment
- economic valuation
- ecosystem services
- market integration
- nature-based solutions (nbs)
- non-market valuation
- stated preferences
- time payment vehicle
