Measuring willingness to pay to improve municipal water in southeast Anatolia, Turkey

Increasing demands for water and quality concerns have highlighted the importance of accounting for household perceptions before local municipalities rehabilitate existing water infrastructures and bring them into compliance. We compared different willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates using household surveys in the southern Anatolian region of Turkey. Our study is the first of its kind in Turkey. Biases resulting from sample selection and the endogeneity of explanatory variables were corrected. When compared to a univariate probit model, correction of these biases was shown to result in statistically significant findings through moderate reductions in mean WTP.