This research estimated the economical value of conflict resolution in rural areas by analyzing the marginal willingness to pay according to conflict resolution levels caused by agricultural activities.
In the modern society, conflicts have overall become expanded and intensified due to the difference in the value an individual pursues and how it is achieved, opposing interests between the members of a society and
government policies without enough national consensus. Expecially, because rural society discords are intimately connected to the lifestyle of a village community, solving it through communication between the parties to the conflict and rational decision making is difficult.
If prevention and management are not carried out at a proper time, conflict aggravates the social cost and burden together with consumptive disputes. Therefore, in order for the rural community to cope with
environmental and condition changes and develop with self perpetuation, this research differs from other researches in that it realizes the economical value of conflict resolution within rural societies and attempts to quantify it.
A one on one interview survey was conducted targeting farmers across the country. The value of each characteristic was measured through choice experiments(CE) and data was analyzed using the conditional logic model. The levels of each characteristic in choice experiments for resident conflicts were
divided into four categories, with a standard of very high(current state), high, low, and absent. For personal anxiety and worries, the categories were set to abound(current state), plenty, few and none. Levy, which is the share that a household has to pay for a year was presented in seven levels with a standard of 0 won(current state) with an increasing of 20,000won up to 120,000won.
In this research, in order to reduce the hypothetical bias, error question was intentionally included when making a profile using the orthogonal design. Therefore, we estimated the marginal willingness to pay of respondents to each characteristic of conflict and anxiety relief, both when including and not including the respondents who chose the error question, which was intentionally designed to reduce the hypothetical bias, and compared the estimated results.
Examining the estimated results of the marginal willingness to pay for each category of conflict resolution, residents showed a willingness to pay of 7,319.4won if the degree(intensity) of resident discords change from "very high" to "high", 28,751.5won if it changes to "low" and 33,910.0won if it changes to "absent". Also, for individual anxiety and worries it was estimated that the residents showed a willingness to pay of 8,406.8won if it changes from "abound" to "plenty", 31,395.2won if it changes to "few", 45,094.4won if it
changes to "none". Additionally, in all levels of each characteristic, the marginal willingness to pay was larger in individual anxiety and worries relief than in resident conflict resolution. From this we can know that farmers put a greater value on the relief of personal anxiety and worries than on the resolution of conflicts between residents.
The significance of this research is that, based on a theoretical basis of non-market goods value estimation on the change of conflict level, it includes a quantitative analysis of the economical value of relieving individual
anxiety or worries of a farmer who works at a rural area, or the resolution of dispute and conflict between parties of interest in the area or neighbors.
In the future, this research is expected to be used as data for empirical studies that estimate the value of resolving certain conflicts that occur in rural areas.