Abstract

We assess what drives the lower valuation of nature protection on the other side of the border in two European transboundary nature areas, the Bialowieza Forest (Poland and Belarus), and Fulufja center dot llet (Norway and Sweden). Applying hybrid choice modelling, we account for people's attitudes when eliciting their preferences for extensions of transboundary nature protected areas. We examine the impact of attitudes on a so-called 'home bias' effect appearing in public preferences stated towards transboundary nature protected areas; that is the inclination towards preferring the domestic part. We find that concerning the intention of visiting the foreign part of the transboundary area, the appreciation of transboundary justice and altruism are the main systematic mitigators of home bias. Suspicious attitude towards the neighbouring country, the anticipation of unilateral foreign provision, and the manifestations of 'patriotism' apply as home bias drivers only to a limited degree. Facilitating visits to the foreign part by enhancing cross-border access can be expected to shift peoples' preferences towards transboundary co-operation.

Keywords

Home bias; Transboundary nature protected areas; International public goods; Public preferences; Willingness to pay; Discrete choice experiment; Hybrid choice modelling

Published in

Ecological Economics
2023, Volume: 208, article number: 107798
Publisher: ELSEVIER

SLU Authors

• Angelstam, Per

  • School for Forest Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences

UKÄ Subject classification

Economics
Ecology


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107798

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/122705