Willingness to accept

In economics, willingness to accept (WTA) is the minimum monetary amount that а person is willing to accept to sell a good or service, or to bear a negative externality, such as pollution.^[1] This is in contrast to willingness to pay (WTP), which is the maximum amount of money a consumer (a buyer) is willing to sacrifice to purchase a good/service or avoid something undesirable.^[1] The price of any transaction will thus be any point between a buyer's willingness to pay and a seller's willingness to accept; the net difference is the economic surplus.

Several methods exist to measure consumer willingness to accept payment. These methods can be differentiated by whether they measure consumers' hypothetical or actual willingness to accept, and whether they measure it directly or indirectly.

Choice modelling techniques may be used to estimate the value of WTA through a choice experiment. Contingent Value techniques are also common and directly ask respondents what they would be willing to accept for different hypothetical scenarios.^[2]