Abstract
Abstract Large-scale research infrastructures such as particle colliders, radio telescopes, the International Space Station, are often funded through general taxation and taxpayers are called to contribute to scientific discovery. How much are people actually willing to pay for investments in science? What does drive such a giving behaviour? This paper explores the attitudes of young science-outsiders (the taxpayers of tomorrow) by a pilot experiment involving 230 undergraduate students in economics at University of Milan. The experiment takes the form of a Contingent Valuation Referendum-like interview aimed at eliciting the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for the discovery potential of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator worldwide. Our results point to the attitudes of students about fundamental science measured through their WTP. Building on this pilot experiment, we put forward recommendations for future research.
Highlights
The present value to 2025 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) total costs has been estimated around EUR 13.5 billion2 (Florio et al, 2016), while the cost of the Human Genome Project is estimated at around EUR 2.5 billion
The questions to be addressed are: does society perceive science as a valuable investment? Are citizens outside the scientific community willing to pay for basic research with their own money? And what factors drive this willingness-to-pay (WTP, hereafter)? These questions are interesting for both academic research and science policy (Baneke, 2019; Florio, 2019)
This paper investigates on the WTP for particle physics research at LHC by a pilot experimental setting, drawing from the empirical literature on the valuation of non-use benefits of environmental or cultural goods (Carson, 2011; Snowball, 2008)
Summary
The main benefits generated by research infrastructures such as the creation of knowledge outputs, technological externalities, human capital accumulation, the cultural impact of the outreach, and service provision may only capture the use-value of these assets. To estimate their total economic value, the benefits related to the non-use value should be considered (Johansson, 2016; Rousseau et al, 2021). The impact of big-science on society is an important issue to be investigated and deserves much more attention than is current the case To achieve this stated purpose, we use both parametric and nonparametric estimators to explore the drivers the respondents’ WTP.
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