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Recent federal legislation has set ambitious goals and provided generous funding for improvement of the water quality in our nation's lakes and rivers. This study analyzes the demand for clean water of 165 families in the Boston metropolitan area based on a specially designed survey. Using regression analysis, the determinants of willingness to pay for swimmable Charles River water quality are isolated. An estimate of the aggregate benefit of this policy is then developed from these regressions and compared to the resource costs implied by the policy. The benefits appear to be of the same order of magnitude as the costs.
FREDERICK W. GRAMLICH (Wed,) studied this question.