Abstract:The research question for this study is estimating the public's willingness to pay for the public goods generated by farmland, and exploring respondents' heterogeneity in their preferences for these goods. The approach used is a choice experiment, using respondents from the city of Wuhan, China. Six attributes representing public good values (farmland area, farmland fertility, water quality, air quality, species richness, and recreational value) and the level of private cost are selected in this study. A heteroscedastic conditional logit model is used to analyze the respondents' willingness to pay for improvements in these public goods, accounting for systematic heterogeneity in public preferences. The results show the public are willing to pay to preserve the non-market values generated by farmland, with air quality valued most and followed by farmland fertility, farmland area, water quality, species richness and recreational value. In addition, respondents with higher income, and who are aware of the non-market values of farmland and have a willingness to pay for it have a smaller error variance, i.e., these respondents are more consistent in their choices. This study may help decision makers improving more differentiated farmland protection policies.

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