The Influence of Social Capital on Willingness to Pay for the Environment among European Citizens

Abstract: Social capital has been recognized as one of the most influential concepts in social and political sciences. It is assumed that it has significant influence on several issues such as health status, educational achievement and environmental attitudes. The present article attempts to investigate the influence of social capital on the tendency of European citizens to contribute money for the environment using data from EVS 1999/2000. Firstly, an estimation of individual social capital is calculated for European citizens with the use of Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Secondly, the relation between individual social capital and willingness to pay (WTP) is examined. Thirdly, further evidence is provided by introducing in the analysis the influence of other factors such as income, age, gender and educational level. In addition, the influence of contextual factors on WTP is explored. Through the results of the study it is observed that most European citizens are willing to pay for the environment and their decision is influenced significantly from elements of social capital. Furthermore, on a contextual level only some of the factors investigated explain the tendency to contribute money for the environment.