Unraveling determinants of inferred and stated attribute non-attendance: effects on farmers’ willingness to accept to join agri-environmental schemes

Attribute nonattendance (ANA) has received very little attention in the context of willingness to accept (WTA), although an increasing number of studies analyze the preferences of ecosystem service providers toward incentive‐based schemes. We add to the understanding of ANA behavior by analyzing stated and inferred ANA in a choice experiment investigating farmers’ WTA for participating in agri‐environmental schemes (AES) in southern Spain. We use mixed logit models, following Hess and Hensher for the inferred ANA approach. Evidence is found of ANA behavior for both stated and inferred approaches, with models accounting for ANA clearly outperforming those that do not account for it; however, we produce no conclusive results as to which ANA approach is best. WTA estimates are only moderately affected, which to some extent is consistent with the low level of non‐attendance found for the monetary attribute. Stated and inferred approaches show very similar WTA estimates. Additionally, we investigate sources of observed heterogeneity related to ANA behavior by using a sequence of bivariate probit models for each attribute. Overall, our results hint at a positive relationship between ease of scheme adoption and nonattendance to attributes. However, further research is still needed in this field. Malgre un nombre croissant d'etudes portant sur la preference des fournisseurs de services d'ecosystemes pour les plans incitatifs, l'ignorance d'attributs (IA) a recu peu d'attention dans le contexte de la volonte d'acceptation. Nous contribuons a la comprehension des comportements d'IA en analysant l'IA formulee et inferee dans une experimentation des choix portant sur la volonte d'accepter la participation aux plans agroenvironnementaux au sud de l'Espagne. Nous nous sommes servis des modeles logit mixtes, suivant Hess et Hensher pour l'approche de l'IA inferee. Des preuves de comportement d'IA a la fois dans les approches formulees et inferees sont etablies, les modeles d'IA surpassant ceux qui n'en tiennent pas compte. Par contre, nous n'avons pas produit de resultats identifiant laquelle des approches d'IA s'avere la meilleure. Les estimations de la volonte d'acceptation ne sont que moderement affectees, ce qui, en partie, correspond aux bas niveaux de l'ignorance d'attributs identifies pour l'attribut financier. Les approches formulees et inferees engendrent des estimations tres similaires de volonte d'acceptation. De plus, nous enquetons sur les sources d'heterogeneite observees liees au comportement d'IA au moyen d'une sequence de modeles probits bivaries pour chaque attribut. Globalement, nos resultats font allusion a une relation positive entre la simplicite d'adoption d'un plan et l'ignorance d'attributs. Toutefois, d'autres etudes demeurent necessaires dans ce domaine.

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