Björn Olsson

The marine environment provides many goods and services that humans benefit from but often pay little or nothing for. Examples include food, recreation activities and coastal protection. These benefits are dependent upon the quality of the coastal water. In this paper we employ a choice experiment to estimate the economic benefits of improved coastal water quality. We let water quality with be represented by three different attributes, level of fish stock, bathing water quality, and biodiversity level. Respondents’ choices together with various socio-economic data are analyzed using a mixed multinomial logit model. Our results confirm heterogeneous preferences for these attributes. Further, we find that respondents have high levels of environmental concern and that substantial values are at stake. The most urgent action according to our findings is to prevent further possible depletion of marine biodiversity and then to improve Swedish cod stocks, while improved water quality and improved marine biodiversity is less urgent. Acknowledgements This work was sponsored by the Sustainable Coastal Zone Management Programme, funded by the Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, MISTRA. We have benefited from discussions with Fredrik Carlsson on various aspects of this paper. Α Department of Economics, Göteborg University, P.O. Box 640, SE-405 30 GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN. E-mail: [email protected] B Department of Economics, Göteborg University, P.O. Box 640, SE-405 30 GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN. E-mail: [email protected] 1