Can respondent uncertainty be ignored when exploring heterogeneity in public preferences for air pollution treatment policies? Comparative results from choice experiment analysis
Can respondent uncertainty be ignored when exploring heterogeneity in public preferences for air pollution treatment policies? Comparative results from choice experiment analysis
复制标题
在探索公众对空气污染治理政策偏好的异质性时，是否可以忽略受访者的不确定性？
DOI：
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.152169
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发表时间：
2022
影响因子：
9.8
通讯作者：
Xu Lishan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Zheng Debin;Ao Changlin;Mao Biqi;Xu Lishan
基于选择实验（CE），评估公众对空气污染治理政策的异质偏好和支付意愿（WTP），可以为治理方案的合理制定提供有益的社会意见。然而，CE的应用包含一个隐含的假设，即受访者了解自己的真实偏好，并且可以完全确定地做出选择。事实上，由于种种原因，并非所有受访者都对自己的回答有绝对的把握，这种假设显然很难与现实相符。为了探究受访者的不确定性对公众支付意愿和空气污染治理政策异质性偏好的影响，本研究引入了CE背景下应对这种不确定性的临界点和指数加权方法，并基于随机参数logit（RPL）和潜在类别模型（LCM）进行了比较分析。结果表明，忽视不确定性会导致公众支付意愿和偏好特征的扭曲。在 RPL 模型中，属性的 WTP 平均被高估了 32.10%。我们的结果还表明，是否考虑不确定性并不影响这些属性隐含价格的排名。将不确定性纳入分析后，受访者被分为两个不同偏好的潜在群体，即注重环境的群体（79.44%）和注重价格的群体（20.56%），这与忽略不确定性的研究结果截然不同。本研究的贡献不仅为探索基于CE的不确定性对公众偏好的影响提供理论见解，而且为政策制定者制定更准确有效的治疗措施提供有价值的指导。
Based on choice experiment (CE), evaluating the public's heterogeneous preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for air pollution treatment policies can provide useful social views for the reasonable formulation of treatment schemes. However, the application of CE contains an implicit assumption that respondents understand their real preferences and can make choices with complete certainty. In reality, for a variety of reasons, not all respondents are absolutely certain about their responses, this assumption distinctly is hard to be consistent with reality. To explore the impact of respondent uncertainty on the public's WTP and heterogeneous preferences for air pollution treatment policies, this study introduces the critical point and exponential weighting methods to deal with this uncertainty in the context of CE and conducts comparative analysis based on the random parameters logit (RPL) and latent classes models (LCM). The results show that, ignoring uncertainty leads to distortions in the public's WTP and preference characteristics. In the RPL models, on average, the WTP for attributes is overstated by 32.10%. Our results also reveal that, whether to consider uncertainty does not affect the ranking of the implicit prices of these attributes. After incorporating uncertainty into the analysis, respondents were divided into two potential groups with different preferences, namely the environment-focused group (79.44%) and the price-focused group (20.56%), which is quite distinct from research results of ignoring the uncertainty. Contribution of this study is not only to provide theoretical insights for exploring the effects of uncertainty on public preferences based on CE, but also to provide valuable guidance for policy makers to formulate more accurate and effective treatment measures.