UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM – NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M. IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS APPLYING CONTINGENT VALUATION METHOD FOR ESTIMATING WILLINGNESS TO PAY TO CONTROL URBAN FLOODING IN HO CHI MINH CITY BY NGUYEN DUY CHINH MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2014 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM – NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M. IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS APPLYING CONTINGENT VALUATION METHOD FOR ESTIMATING WILLINGNESS TO PAY TO CONTROL URBAN FLOODING IN HO CHI MINH CITY A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By NGUYEN DUY CHINH Academic Supervisor: DR. TRUONG DANG THUY HO CHI MINH CITY, DECEMBER 2014 ABSTRACT Despite the implementation of many large scale projects involving in controlling urban flooding in Ho Chi Minh City, the issue of urban flooding has been a long- lasting issue for inhabitants in HCMC.
There are many causes for the problem, both objective and man-made. This study conducts a contingent valuation (CV) study to find out the willingness to pay (WTP) for the controlling of urban flooding issue. The CV survey was done with the direct survey instrument on 180 households in HCMC. Double-bounded dichotomous choice question was also used.
Non-parametric and parametric estimates for mean WTP are VND 464,654 and VND 380,000 per each household respectively. Bootstrapping procedure further solidifies these results. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Measure of change in human welfare. 4 Figure 2 WTP and WTA in the case of perfect substitutability.
6 Figure 3 WTP and WTA in the case of imperfect substitutability. 6 Figure 4 Total economic value. 8 Figure 5 Monthly mean rainfall in HCMC and mean sea water level at Vung Tau. 16 Figure 6 Number of flooding locations in HCMC from 2008 to 2014.
18 Figure 7 Open-bid responses from the pilot survey. 27 Figure 8 Project 1547 overview. 31 Figure 9 Protection for zone I. 32 Figure 10 Protection for zone II.
33 Figure 11 Distribution of age in the sample. 38 Figure 12 Monthly income distribution and House condition. 39 Figure 13 Income and ownership of households with ‘no’ response at VND 50,000. 41 Figure 14 Survivor function of non-parametric estimation.
42 Figure 15 Monthly income classified by education groups. 49 Figure 16 Crystal Ball bootstrapping result for non-parametric WTP. 67 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Total economic value of the project 1547. 10 Table 2 Three types of commonly used elicitation questions.
20 Table 3 Details of 18 sets of bid used in the survey. 27 Table 4 Distribution of observations across areas. 28 Table 5 Main contents of the questionnaire. 29 Table 6 Interval distribution of WTP responses.
34 Table 7 First bid question response statistics. 40 Table 8 Second bid question response statistics. 41 Table 9 Variables specification. 44 Table 10 Logistic regression result.
46 Table 11 Unrestricted model and Restricted model comparison. 48 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Willingness to pay and willingness to accept .2 Total Economic Value .3 Utility Theory and the Utility Difference Approach .4 Contingent Valuation Method .5 Some relevant CVM case studies .1 Current flooding and flooding control state in HCMC .2 The procedure of conducting a CVM study .3 Survey procedure of the study .4 Main contents of the questionnaire .5 Description of the hypothetical project .6 Non-parametric estimation technique.7 Parametric estimation technique .8 Confidence intervals of mean WTP .36 CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS RESULTS .2 Non-parametric estimation result .3 Parametric estimation results .1 Main findings and policy implication.2 Limitations of the study .59 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is one of the largest city and an important economic center in Viet Nam. With the population of 7.8 million people and density of 3,721 people per kilometer square (Wikipedia, 2011), the development of infrastructure cannot catch up with the rapid urbanization rate of HCMC.