The WTP Method as an Index of Taxation for Environmental Restoration in the City of Thessaloniki in Greece

The purpose of this study is to provide an evaluation of the possible criteria used by the people of Thessaloniki for the evaluation of public goods and the investigation of the benefits of the conservation and restoration of city structures affected by carbon monoxide. These benefits are expressed in monetary units by using the CVM (Contingent Valuation Method). The maintenance of the urban environment often entails excessive costs paid by the people through taxation. A city free of aesthetic pollution results in an increase in tourism. A portion of taxation paid by the citizens is allocated to cleaning the city. An increase in tourism provides the government with additional revenue through VAT (Value Added Taxes). The increase in the money supply is not significant enough to affect the inflation rate, but gives the government additional revenue for the maintenance of the city and additional resources to service the national debt. The evaluation of these public goods cannot be expressed in the private sector, so authors applied a modified version of the CVM which is a survey-based technique used in experimental economics. The study sample was 100 citizens of Thessaloniki. The objective of this study was to determine the citizens’ of Thessaloniki WTP (Willingness To Pay) for this public goods. Furthermore, the objective of this study was to investigate the willingness of the citizens to pay more taxes for the conservation/restoration of building facades in the historic sectors of Thessaloniki. The main findings show that in a large proportion, 28% of the interviewees are willing to pay, but those that are willing to pay significant amounts tend to prefer mild interventions to the buildings, while those (42%) that agree with minimal to null amount demand radical intervention. The latter group, also, considers any contribution of theirs to restoration as unfair, judging that this expenditure should be covered exclusively by the State. Last but not least, from a sociopsychological point of view, this attitude could be attributed to extreme personalities which tend to prefer more holistic and direct solutions (i.e., no mixed strategy involving people and the State is acceptable by interviewees who considered themselves as having no further obligations after regular tax-paying); as a result, they think that the State is exclusively responsible to resolve the situation.