| dc.description.abstract | Contingent valuation (CV) is commonly used in environmental economics
to estimate non-use values of environmental goods and services.3 Use
values are amenable to direct analysis based on revealed preference
data, either from direct approaches such as reviewing evidence of actual purchases, or indirect approaches such as travel cost and hedonic price
analysis. CV is likely to be much less accurate for non-use amenities than
for use amenities, as respondents asked about non-use amenities have no
market experience to guide their thinking, and are unlikely to have ever
given thought to assigning monetary values for this type of good.
From its earliest days, the CV method has been scrutinized with respect
to whether its results are consistent with the assumptions of rational
choice. In this chapter we focus on one of the key tests of rational choice:
do estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) derived from CV studies increase
as the amount of the good (or the number of goods) increases (i.e., as
scope increases), and, if so, are the WTP estimates “adequately” responsive
to scope? | |
