Willingness to pay

On the basis of the project support, in the following the aggregated and disaggregated WTP will be depicted. Beginning with disaggregated WTP, Figure 6-2 illustrates changes in individual WTP after deliberation. Each panel represents one of the twelve deliberative valuation workshops. Within each panel, dots reflect participants’ stated WTP amounts and lines connect each participants’ elicited amounts before and after the deliberative intervention.

A WTP below zero implies that participants are in favour of decreasing the wolf population.

Contingent Valuation

Preference Economisation

Preference Moralisation Stage

Preferred project First Second First Second

Increase population 41 41 40 40 42

Status quo 4 2 3 3 3

Decrease population 3 3 3 4 2

Source: Own illustration

Figure 6-2 shows that only in two groups (both PE treatment) none of the participants stated a WTP amount diverging from the first elicitation. In contrast, alterations of individual WTP occurred in the other ten groups. As indicated by the steepness and length of the lines, some changes were minor while others appear to be major. It is noteworthy that in three PM workshops participants’ WTP changed from negative to positive. On contrary, one participant in the PM treatment changed preferences from a zero WTP to a negative one at the second stage.

Table 6-3 provides a summary about the number of changes and the direction of change regarding participants’ WTP after deliberation for each (deliberative) treatment. The table reports the count of changes as well as the percentage change relative to the subsample size. In the PE treatment around three quarter of participants did not alter their stated amounts. While one quarter of participants did report different amounts, most of them reduced their stated amounts compared to before. Only three participants, 6.5% relative to the 46 participants in the subsample, had a higher WTP than before. In contrast, in the PM treatment more than a third of the participants changed their stated amounts and mostly stated a higher amount (27.7%), whereas 10.6% reported a lower WTP than before.

Source: Own illustration

Figure 6-2 Changes in individual WTP per stage

Table 6-3 Number of changes in participants’ WTP after deliberation

Method

Change in WTP Preference Economisation Preference Moralisation

↑ 3 (6.5%) 13 (27.7%)

= 35 (76.1%) 29 (61.7%)

↓ 8 (17.4%) 5 (10.6%)

Source: Own illustration

The figures represent absolute numbers and the figures in brackets the change relative to subsample size.

Turning to mean WTP, the simultaneous aggregation of negative and positive WTP would be problematic. Hence, in the following the summary statistics will be based on WTP amounts left-censored at zero.

Figure 6-3 reports mean WTP per valuation method and stage. In addition, the sixth bar (grey) reports mean WTP for the CV treatment and the WTP amounts elicited at the first round of the PE treatment. In the PE treatment, WTP amounts before deliberation are elicited on the basis of the CV procedure and have an identical framing. Hence, also the PE amounts at stage one can be considered to be amounts elicited by CV which justifies the aggregation. Note that this does not apply to WTP amounts elicited at the first stage in the PM treatment due to the social framing of the tasks/questions.

Source: Own illustration

Figure 6-3 Mean WTP per method and stage

At a first glance, the mean WTP of the CV treatment group (€35.4) appears to be considerably smaller than mean WTP of the PE treatment (stage one: €49.2) and the mean WTP of the PM treatment (stage one: €41.5). Yet, this disparity may rather be caused by the small sample size as indicated by the grey bar, the aggregated mean of CV and PE amounts elicited at stage one.

Comparing mean WTP between the two deliberative methods and stages confirms the first indications gained by the analysis of individual WTP amounts: firstly, mean WTP is smaller (-2.6%) after deliberation in case of the PE treatment. Secondly, mean WTP is higher (+7%) at stage two in the PM treatment.

Figure 6-4 shows that substantial differences between mean WTP of the eighteen groups exist.

The dashed line indicates the overall aggregated mean at the first stage, while the dotted line represents the overall aggregated mean at the second stage. As seen in the figure, the overall mean is larger at the second stage than at the first stage (€46.15 compared to €41.96). Further, these differences seem to occur irrespective from the valuation method as the variation within treatments appears to be large.

Source: Own illustration

The dashed line indicates the mean WTP at stage one and the dotted one the mean WTP at stage two.

Figure 6-4 Mean WTP per group

Figure 6-5 illustrates the changes of mean willingness within the groups with respect to stage in more detail. It is noteworthy that in half of the PE valuation workshops the mean WTP was smaller at the second stage, only once higher and two times unchanged. In contrast, in the PM valuation workshops for half of the groups the mean WTP increased after the treatment interventions. For the other half the mean WTP remained identical.

Source: Own illustration

Considering the small sample size and potentially influential observations, Table 6-4 reports median WTP in addition to mean WTP. The overall findings do not seem to differ to a large degree. The median WTP at stage two decreased in case of the PE treatment by €8 which is more than a fifth, while it did not change in the PM treatment.

Figure 6-5 Mean WTP per group and stage

Table 6-4 WTP summary statistics per treatment

In summary, the analysis suggests that mean WTP differs between the valuation methods and that WTP was altered by the different interventions. The next section will assess whether these differences are significant and test the associated hypotheses. Additionally, based on the regression analysis further determinants of WTP will be identified.