title: Willingness to pay for compulsory deworming of pets entering Sweden to prevent introduction of Echinoccoccus multilocularis.
abstract: To investigate if the Swedish entry rules for pets to prevent the introduction of Echinococcus multilocularis (EM) are proportional (i.e. that their costs do not exceed the value of their benefits), a dichotomous-choice contingent valuation study was conducted. The study was performed before the first case of EM was detected in Sweden in February 2011. About 5000, randomly selected, Swedish citizens were invited to participate and 2192 of them (44%) accepted to do so. Missing information on whether or not one would accept to pay for keeping the rules for 143 respondents resulted in 2049 observations (41%) available for the estimation of willingness to pay (WTP), and missing information on personal characteristics for another 274 respondents reduced the number of observations available for sensitivity analysis to 1775 (36%). Annual expected WTP for keeping the rules ranged between € 54.3 and € 99.0 depending on assumptions about compensations demanded by respondents not willing to pay. The estimates are conservative since only answers from respondents that were absolutely certain they would pay the suggested bid were regarded as yes-responses. That WTP is positive implies that Swedish citizens perceived the benefits of the rules to be larger than their costs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P.O. Box 7030, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. soren.hojgard@ekon.slu.se
authors.forename: Sören
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Höjgård
authors.forename: Kristian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sundström
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Christensson
authors.forename: Gunilla
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hallgren
authors.forename: Marika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hjertqvist
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wallensten
authors.forename: Ivar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Vågsholm
authors.forename: Helene
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wahlström
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic; D000871:Anthelmintics / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000191:economics*; D001294:Attitude to Health; D002371:Cat Diseases / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control; D002415:Cats; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D004283:Dog Diseases / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control; D004285:Dogs; D004443:Echinococcosis / Q000191:economics / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000662:veterinary*; D048210:Echinococcus multilocularis; D005382:Financing, Personal / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013548:Sweden
chemical_list: D000871:Anthelmintics