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Female consumers¡¦ willingness to pay for recycled toilet paper: A comparison of contingent valuation method and conjoint analysis

Though recycled toilet paper (RTP) is more environmental friendly than toilet paper made of virgin fiber, they are also more expensive. The price difference has made manufacturers hesitate about marketing RTP in shops, because they assume that consumers are reluctant to buy it. However, no research has been done in Taiwan to explore consumers¡¦ willingness to pay (WTP) for RTP. This study is an attempt to do so by the use of two methods: contingent evaluation method (CVM) and conjoint analysis. Both methods were administered through a survey, which had a convenience sample of 192 female Kaohsiung citizens as respondents.
Results based on CVM showed that the mean WTP for RTP was NT 151, which was a little higher than the price set by Homemaker¡¦s Union and Foundation¡Xan NGO which was the main channel selling RTP to the domestic sector in Taiwan. This suggests that manufacturers might have underestimated the market for RTP. To check the validities of the CVM and conjoint method, two criteria were measured: the respondents¡¦ past environmental behavior (PEB) and their willingness to make sacrifice for environmental causes (WTP3). The WTP as estimated by CVM, namely WTP1, was significantly related to both of these criteria (rs = .16, .32, ps < .05), showing that the CVM had a certain degree of validity. The importance that respondents attached to the eco-label of RTP was assessed by conjoint analysis. Validity of the importance scores thus obtained, however, was quite low: the correlation between these scores and WTP1, PEB and WTP3 were .05, .12 and .20 respectively, with only the last one significant. Results also suggest that environmental knowledge and health and safety concerns for products were not related to WTP1.
Keywords: green consumption, contingent valuation method, conjoint analysis, environmental behavior, eco-label, green mark.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0815106-152625
Date15 August 2006
CreatorsHUANG, KUN-CHIEH
Contributorsnone, none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0815106-152625
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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