WTA-WTP Disparity: The Role of Perceived Realism of the Valuation Setting

Manuel Frondel, Stephan Sommer and Lukas Tomberg

Abstract

Based on a survey of more than 5,000 German households and a single-binary-choice experiment in which we randomly split the respondents into two groups, this article explores both households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for power supply security and their willingness to accept (WTA) compensation for a reduced security level. In accordance with numerous empirical studies, we find that the mean WTA value substantially exceeds the mean WTP value in our empirical example by a factor of 3.56. Yet, the WTA-WTP ratio decreases to 2.35 if respondents believe that the hypothetical valuation setting is likely to become true.

JEL
View Full Text

This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.

Purchase access

You may purchase access to this article. This will require you to create an account if you don't already have one.