Empirical Demonstration of Averting Behavior Theory─from the Example of Drinking Water

• Main Authors: Fan, Yu-Teng, 范譽騰
• Other Authors: Shaw, Daigee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/61421211666259591918

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 資源管理研究所 === 89 === Abstract The quality of drinking water in Taiwan differs from place to place. For example, Kaohsiung has bad quality owing to severe human pollution in it’s riverheads. Although companies providing tap water announce that their qualities meet the required standards, the residents never trust them. Householders choose to buy bottled water or water filtrations instead. The goal of this research is to understand what actions the metropolitan residents will take when finding their drinking water low quality, what alternative ways they will adopt, and what factors will affect their decisions. The research was based on Averting Behavior theory. Household production function was used to estimate the need for quality drinking water because households would invest other goods in order to reduce health risk. Several areas were selected as targets in the empirical research, including Taipei, Taipei county, Taichung, and Kaohsiung. 893 effective replies were received from 3000 questionnaires, which were mailed to families randomly picked within each target areas but selected from different areas according to different population ratios. Finally, the household consequential actions and factors affecting decisions were estimated through Binomial Logit, Multinomial Logit, and Nested Logit regression models. According to the empirical results, Binomial Logit model didn’t estimate high correlative actions correctly. Multinomial Logit model improved the accuracy but had small R-square value. Nested Logit model is the best way in the estimation of Averting Behavior. Among the three estimation models, the two variables confidence and cost had significant influence on the results.