Abstract

Renewable fuels development is an integral part of the public policies mix highlighted by policy makers to decarbonize the transportation sector. Arguably, the widespread deployment of energy transition technologies will largely depends on the attitudes of consumers and citizens. This article investigates the acceptance by the French citizens of a new annual tax to finance the development of biofuels in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. To do so, a Discrete Choice Experiment has been conducted in March 2018 among a set of 1000 respondents, representative of the French population. To our knowledge, this is the first study of stated preferences for biofuels conducted in France. Results of this survey are presented here. We use a two-stage estimation procedure to identify and quantify the determinants of the individual-specific Willingness To Pay (WTP) estimates. We first estimate a Random Parameters Logit (RPL) model to obtain the individual-specific parameters for the biofuels attributes, providing preferences for the main characteristics of biofuels. We then infer individual-specific marginal WTP for each attribute. In a second step, Random Effects (RE) models for panel data are used to (i) highlight spatial preference heterogeneity in public acceptance of biofuels, (ii) determine their main determinants and (iii) infer some insights for policy makers regarding the development of second-generation biofuels.
JEL Classification: C35; C83; Q01; Q42.
Keywords: Biofuels; Discrete choice experiment; Social acceptance; Willingness to pay.

Co-authors : Anthony Paris, Pascal Gastineau and Pierre-Alexandre Mahieu,

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