The value of water quality improvements in the region BerlinBrandenburg as a function of distance and state residency Meyerhoff, J., Boeri, M., & Hartje, V. (2014)
The value of water quality improvements in the rivers of the metropolitan region Berlin-1
Brandenburg as a function of distance and state residency 2Abstract: The study uses a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to elicit willingness to pay estimates for 3 changes in the water quality of five river stretches. As many regions the metropolitan region Berlin-4Brandenburg struggles to achieve the objectives of the Water Framework Directive until 2015. A 5 major problem is the high load of nutrients. As the region is part of two states (Länder) and the river 6 sections are common throughout the whole region we account for the spatial context twofold. Firstly, 7we incorporate the distance between each respondent and all river stretches in all MNL and RPL 8 models, and, secondly, we consider whether respondents reside in the state of Berlin or Brandenburg. 9The compensating variation (CV) calculated for various scenarios shows that overall people would 10 significantly benefit from improved water quality. The CV measures, however, also reveal that not 11 considering the spatial context would result in severely biased welfare measures. While the distance-12 decay effect lowers CV state residency is connected to the frequency of status quo choices and not 13 accounting for residency would underestimate possible welfare gains in one state. Another finding is 14 that the extent of the market varies with respect to attributes (river stretches) and attribute levels (water 15 quality levels). 16