Willingness To Pay for preserving local beaches: The role of framing, attitudes, and local identification

This research concerns the impact of cognitive (i.e., framing issues) and psychosocial (i.e., environmental attitudes and place identity) dimensions on people’s Willingness To Pay (WTP) for preservation and improvement of a ‘local’ environmental public good, i.e., local beaches. After a pilot study, a field experiment (N = 102) was carried out in order to verify the effects on WTP of: (1) the reminder about the involvement of other people for preserving ‘local’ beaches; (2) attitudes towards the environmental good; and (3) local identity. Results confirmed the reminder effect, so that individuals reminded of other contributors are willing to pay less than individuals who were not reminded. Positive attitudes towards local beaches are associated to higher WTP for preserving them, but this emerged only in those residents showing a higher local identification.