Estimating willingness-to-pay for broadband attributes among low-income consumers: Results from two FCC lifeline pilot projects

Recent studies have confirmed that broadband adoption (as opposed to simply having access to broadband infrastructure) is positively linked with economic growth. In light of this, federal policy efforts have switched from focusing mainly on the provision of infrastructure to more explicit adoption-oriented efforts. One of those efforts was the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Low-income Broadband Lifeline Pilot Projects, which ran from 2013 to 2014. The program worked with 14 private telecommunications firms to subsidize household broadband adoption for low-income households by providing discounted monthly and equipment costs. Low-income households are an important component of the broadband adoption puzzle: between 2003 and 2013, the adoption gap between low-income and high-income households actually increased by 5% points. This paper focuses on two specific FCC Broadband Lifeline Pilot projects that allowed consumers to make choices among different options, such as data allowance, speed, and wireless vs. wired connections. Conditional logit models are used to develop estimates of consumer’s willingness-to-pay for specific broadband attributes. The results indicate that low-income consumers have a preference for smartphone connections (versus aircards) – and that this effect is even more pronounced for those households earning less than $20,000; that low-income consumers have a preference for wired connections (versus wireless); and that there is evidence that low-income consumers are willing to pay for an extra GB of data each month – but not for the speed of their connection.     

Food choice,health information and functional ingredients: An experimental auction employing bread

In this paper we present the results of an experimental auction conducted to examine the influence of health and nutritional information on food choice and in particular estimate consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for bread that contains functional ingredients. Employing a sandwich we find that consumers are WTP more for a whole grain and whole grain granary bread sandwich than other bread types including white bread that contains a functional ingredient. We also find that consumers react positively to the provision of nutritional and health benefit information but that this effect occurs regardless of whether we supply specific or non-specific health benefit information. We discuss information provision and health policy implications that emerge from our analysis for bread products in the sandwich market.     

Modification of Costanza＇s model of valuing ecosystem services and its application in China

In the past, evaluations of ecosystem functions were mostly based on Costanza＇s model, whereas the spatial, quality and temporal characteristics of regional ecosystems were not considered in the model. Focusing on these issues, coefficients of regional difference, spatial heterogeneity and willingness-to-pay （WTP） were established to modify Costanza＇s model, and a new comprehensive valuation model of ecosystem functions is proposed. The analytical results indicate that the comprehensive model could evaluate regional ecosystem functions in China accurately and provide more helpful information for decision-making. The empirical study on Zhangbei County in Hebei Province shows that the intensive human activities could limit the provision of ecosystem functions while the planned ecological programs might promote the restoration of ecosystem functions.     

The welfare impact of food pathogen vaccines

Vaccines against several common foodborne pathogens are being developed and could substantially alter the policy tools available to address foodborne illness. However, little analysis is available to suggest how social welfare would be affected by consumer and industry responses to these new vaccines. To address this void, we use stated-preference data to estimate consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for food safety vaccines and then simulate the welfare impacts of subsidizing consumer purchases of the vaccine given two different industry responses: maintaining current levels of food safety vigilance and reducing food safety vigilance due to a moral hazard response that undermines consumer confidence in food safety. To obtain consumer preferences for the vaccine, we simultaneously estimate a three-equation model that recognizes the recursive nature of responses to questions probing respondents’ willingness to purchase vaccines and perceptions of the probability and severity of possible foodborne illness incidents and the joint distribution of unobservable components. Our simulations show large consumer WTP if vaccines are relatively inexpensive while the presence of moral hazard increases respondents’ willingness to pay and voluntary uptake of vaccine.     

Consumers’ willingness to pay for eco-friendly apples under different labels: Evidences from a lab experiment

An experiment was conducted in France to evaluate the impact of health and environmental information on consumers’ choices between conventional and organic apples. Results show that additional and precise messages about both pesticides use and pesticides residues significantly impact consumers’ choices between both products. The experiment also studied the effect of a new label signaling apples that only use few pesticides compared to conventional apples. With elicited willingness-to-pay, we show that the introduction of this new label increases the average participants’ surplus whatever the information context for participants, because of a higher quality compared to conventional apples and a lower price compared to organic products. In order to complement this label, a minimum-quality standard imposing the use of few pesticides is socially optimal when initial participants’ knowledge is limited.     

Determinants of demand for recreational walking trails in Ireland

The purpose of this work is to explore how recreational walkers' marginal willingness to pay for, or travel to, Irish trails is affected by trail attributes. We use principal components data reduction, z-score data normalization, and OLS regression analyses on two stated preference datasets covering 302 Irish and foreign visitors, and recreational experts, across 15 sites in Ireland between 2005 and 2010. Findings reveal that endowment and infrastructure attributes emerge as primary influences affecting demand. In particular, flat or valley-endowed trails, and infrastructure, including signage, amenities, and maps or leaflets positively affect demand. Additionally, robustness checks suggest farmer access agreements may also be important. On the other hand, we find that mountain or hill, forest, and coastal or lake trails, as well as income, seem to be negatively associated with demand. Finally, we are able to use these in-sample results to extrapolate demand for a set of new relatively unimproved trails in an out-of-sample demand prediction exercise.     

Contingent values as implicit contracts: estimating minimum legal willingness to pay for conservation of large carnivores in Sweden

Mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) based on multiple bounded, discrete choice responses from contingent valuation surveys are normally obtained using some kind of parametric estimator. This paper instead exploits the possibility to interpret the response to the discrete-choice question as an implicit contract between the researcher and the respondent, resulting in a minimum legal WTP (MLW) estimator. Never previously used in valuation literature, it is used in this paper to estimate the WTP for the preservation of large carnivores in Sweden, based on a large scale, national survey. Results show that MLW estimates only were 12–19% of the comparable parametric estimates. In keeping with other results in contingent valuation literature, we find that the MLW estimates are positively related to the educational level, income and the fraction of urban population, while negatively related to age. Among the advantages of the MLW estimator is its transparency as well as the fact that it rests on a contractual notion of WTP.      

Integration of HSR and air transport: Understanding passengers’ preferences

Different solutions for the integration of high-speed rail (HSR) and air transport could be implemented, ranging from very basic integration to more sophisticated systems which include ticket and handling integration. A discrete choice experiment is conducted to better understand passengers’ preferences. We estimate a number of flexible choice models, taking into account the existence of systematic and random taste heterogeneity. We obtain a range of willingness-to-pay values for service quality attributes, finding some important results that can be used to infer policy conclusions about the real attractiveness of the Air–HSR integrated alternative. In this respect, we find that schedule coordination which reduces connecting time will be crucial.