Hermann Pythagore Pierre Donfouet

Using respondents’ uncertainty scores to mitigate hypothetical bias in community-based health insurance studies

Community-based health insurance has been implemented in several developing countries to help the poor to gain access to adequate health-care services. Assessing what the poor are willing to pay is of paramount importance for policymaking. The contingent valuation method, which relies on a hypothetical market, is commonly used for this purpose. But the presence of the hypothetical bias that is most often inherent in this method tends to bias the estimates upward and compromises policymaking. This paper uses respondents’ uncertainty scores in an attempt to mitigate hypothetical bias in community-based health insurance in one rural setting in Cameroon. Uncertainty scores are often employed in single dichotomous choice surveys. An originality of the paper is to use such an approach in a double-bounded dichotomous choice survey. The results suggest that this instrument is effective at decreasing the mean WTP.

Determinants of willingness-to-pay for renewable energy: does the age of nuclear power plant reactors matter?

Many countries are facing a dilemma over whether to extend the lives of their old reactors or make costly capital investments on Renewable Energy (RE). This paper explores the determinants of Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) for RE in France by means of a contingent valuation question that was included in a large web survey organized by the OECD. The main contribution of our paper is to test whether people living close to a reactor are sensitive to the age of the reactor. We find that the age of the reactor has a positive effect on WTP for RE.