It is important for central government to have good information about public preferences
regarding budget allocations. Consumer sovereignty, government popularity, and efficiency
are all dependent on clear articulation of community preferences. The paper draws upon
information gathered as part of a large-scale survey to identify community perceptions about
the state of the New Zealand environment (Hughey et al., 2002) to identify public preferences
for allocation of government monies. Methods entailed survey participant statements of
preferences for spending on specified environmental and conservation items, a balanced
macro-budget reallocation exercise, and a choice modelling exercise to reveal willingness to
trade-off expenditures on particular budget items.
The environmental budget allocation exercise provides little guidance on which aspects of
environmental spending would provide the greatest benefits at the margin. For most items the
modal response was no change in current spending. However, more than 50% of respondents
indicated they preferred increased spending on pest & weed control, air quality and fresh
waters.
The macro-budget reallocation and choice modelling exercises provide similar results. They
both indicated that people obtain negative utility from allocating money to income support,
and desire cuts to spending on superannuation and income support. Older respondents are not
as averse to spending on income support, but are still generally in favour of cuts in spending
on this item. Spending on health, education, and the environment all yield positive benefits.
Respondents see significantly more benefits from spending on health, than on education or
the environment. Willingness to spend on health is not affected by respondent age, but
willingness to spend on education and the environment both decline with age.[Show full abstract]
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