Willingness to pay to reduce health risks related to air quality: evidence from a choice experiment survey in Beijing

This study reports the results from a discrete choice experiment conducted in Beijing China. It aims to elicit monetary values for the value of a statistical life (VSL) and the value of a statistical illness (VSI) that can be considered for policy purposes in China, and to examine how different payment regimes influence willingness to pay (WTP) and whether WTP is age-dependent. We find that our estimates are robust between different econometric model specifications and that they are reliable when compared to previous Chinese findings. We find no evidence of any VSL-age relationship but we find that the payment scheme had an effect on the levels of the estimates of the VSL and VSI, and that taking into account the payment regimes when estimating the models improved their performance. However, levels were relatively close and not statistically significantly different for VSL which may suggest that respondents considered both schemes as similar.