Contingent Valuation Analysis of Willingness to Pay To Reduce Childhood Obesity / John Cawley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cawley, John.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w12510.

NBER working paper series no. w12510

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2006.

Summary:

Several recent surveys have asked Americans whether they support policies to reduce childhood obesity. There is reason for skepticism of such surveys because people are not confronted with the tax costs of such policies when they are asked whether they support them. This paper uses contingent valuation (CV), a method frequently used to estimate people's willingness to pay (WTP) for goods or services not transacted in markets, applied to unique survey data from New York State to estimate the willingness to pay to reduce childhood obesity. <br><br>The willingness to pay data correlate in predictable ways with respondent characteristics. The mean WTP for a 50% reduction in childhood obesity is $46.41 (95% CI: $33.45, $59.15), which implies a total WTP by New York State residents of $690.6 million (95% CI: $497.7, $880.15), which is less than that implied by previous surveys that did not use CV methods but greater than current spending on policies to reduce childhood obesity and greater than the estimated savings in external costs. The findings provide policymakers with useful information about taxpayers' support for, and preferred budget for, anti-obesity policies.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2006.