A Comparison of Actual and Hypothetical Willingness to Pay of Parents and Non-Parents for Protecting Infant Health: The Case of Nitrates in Drinking Water

摘要

We estimate adults' willingness to pay (WTP) to reduce health risks to their own or other families' infants to test for altruism. A conjoint analysis of adults paying for bottled water found marginal WTP for reduction in risk of shock, brain damage, and mortality in the cash treatment of 2 dollar, 3.70 dollar, and 9.43 dollar, respectively. In the hypothetical market these amounts were 14 dollar, 26 dollar, and 66 dollar, indicating substantial hypothetical bias, although not unexpected due to the topic of infant health. Statistical tests confirm a high degree of altruism in our WTP results, and altruism held even when real money was involved.