Handbook On Contingent Valuation

The Handbook on Contingent Valuation is unique in that it focuses on contingent valuation as a method for evaluating environmental change. It examines econometric issues, conceptual underpinnings, implementation issues as well as alternatives to contingent valuation. Anna Alberini and James Kahn have compiled a comprehensive and original reference volume containing invaluable case studies that demonstrate the implementation of contingent valuation in a wide variety of applications. Chapters include those on the history of contingent valuation, a practical guide to its implementation, the use of experimental approaches, an ecological economics perspective on contingent valuation and approaches for developing nations. The Handbook also contains: P discussions of underlying theory both contingent valuation and conjoint analysis comparisons of real and hypothetical data using experimental approaches an examination of survey structure issues developing country focus critical essays concerning the ethical basis of contingent valuation. This new reference book will be warmly welcomed by academics in environmental economics, environmental professionals in government, consulting firms and NGOs. Graduate and undergraduate students in economics, environmental studies and environmental policy will also find this an ever valuable resource.

This major reference work the first of its kind provides a comprehensive and authoritative introduction to the large and growing literature on contingent valuation. It includes entries on over 7,500 contingent valuation papers and studies from over 130 countries covering both the published and grey literatures. This book provides an interpretive historical account of the development of contingent valuation, the most commonly used approach to placing a value on goods not normally sold in the marketplace. The major fields catalogued here include culture, the environment, and health application. This bibliography is an ideal starting point for researchers wanting to find other studies that have valued goods or used techniques similar to those they are interested in. For those wanting to conduct meta analyses, the book will serve as an invaluable guide to source material. For those wanting to conduct meta analyses, the book will serve as an invaluable guide to source material. In addition to the print edition we offer access, for purchasers of the book, to a website providing the contents of as a searchable Word document and in a variety of standard bibliographic database forms. Contingent Valuation is an indispensable reference source for researchers, scholars and policymakers concerned with survey approaches to the problem of environmental valuation.

Economists and others have long believed that by balancing the costs of such public goods as air quality and wilderness areas against their benefits, informed policy choices can be made. But the problem of putting a dollar value on cleaner air or water and other goods not sold in the marketplace has been a major stumbling block. Mitchell and Carson, for reasons presented in this book, argue that at this time the contingent valuation (CV) method offers the most promising approach for determining public willingness to pay for many public goods---an approach likely to succeed, if used carefully, where other methods may fail. The result of ten years of research by the authors aimed at assessing how surveys might best be used to value public goods validly and reliably, this book makes a major contribution to what constitutes best practice in CV surveys. Mitchell and Carson begin by introducing the contingent valuation method, describing how it works and the nature of the benefits it can be used to measure, comparing it to other methods for measuring benefits, and examining the data-gathering technique on which it is based---survey research. Placing contingent valuation in the larger context of welfare theory, the authors examine how the CV method impels a deeper understanding of willingness-to-pay versus willingness-to-accept compensation measures, the possibility of existence values for public goods, the role of uncertainty in benefit valuation, and the question of whether a consumer goods market or a political goods market (referenda) should be emulated. In developing a CV methodology, the authors deal with issues of broader significance to survey research. Their model of respondent error is relevant to current efforts to frame a theory of response behavior and bias typology will interest those considering the cognitive aspects of answering survey questions. Mitchell and Carson conclude that the contingent valuation method can obtain valid valuation information on public goods, but only if the method is applied in a way that addresses the potential sources of error and bias. They end their book by providing guidelines for CV practitioners, a list of questions that should be asked by any decision maker who wishes to use the findings of a CV study, and suggestions for new applications of contingent valuation. Additional features include a comprehensive bibliography of the CV literature and an appendix summarizing more than 100 CV studies.

Non-market environmental valuation (NMEV) is undergoing a period of increased growth in both application and development as a result of increasing recognition of the role of economics in environmental policy issues. Against this backdrop, The International Handbook on Non-Market Environmental Valuation brings together world leaders in the field to advance the development and application of NMEV as a tool for policymaking. The expert contributors provide insights into the state of the art across the spectrum of both revealed and stated preference methods and highlight new directions being taken. A sequence of topical applications demonstrate various techniques and illustrate what can be achieved using NMEV: deliberately diverse case studies are drawn from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia with valuation targets ranging across use and non-use values of the environment. A number of reviews of cutting-edge issues are also presented. This outstanding resource will enable those interested in environmental valuation from theoretical, practical or policy perspectives to bring themselves to the forefront of developments and practice. As such, this Handbook will prove invaluable to a wide-ranging audience encompassing academics, researchers, students, practitioners and consultants involved in environmental economics and NMEV.

The Handbook of Environmental Economics focuses on the economics of environmental externalities and environmental public goods. Volume I examines environmental degradation and policy responses from a microeconomic, institutional standpoint. Its perspective is dynamic, including a consideration of the dynamics of natural systems, and global, with attention paid to issues in both rich and poor nations. In addition to chapters on well-established topics such as the theory and practice of pollution regulation, it includes chapters on new areas of environmental economics research related to common property management regimes; population and poverty; mechanism design; political economy of regulation; experimental evaluations of policy instruments; and technological change.

Contingent valuation is a survey-based procedure that attempts to estimate how much households are willing to pay for specific programs that improve the environment or prevent environmental degradation. For decades, the method has been the center of debate regarding its reliability: does it really measure the value that people place on environmental changes? Bringing together leading voices in the field, this timely book tells a unified story about the interrelated features of contingent valuation and how those features affect its reliability. Through empirical analysis and review of past studies, the authors identify important deficiencies in the procedure, raising questions about the technique's continued use. Individual chapters investigate how respondents answer questions in contingent valuation surveys, with a particular focus on how the procedure's estimates change based on the costs that the researcher specifies, the payment mechanism, and the scope of the environmental improvement. Other issues covered include whether the survey respondents make trade-offs between the program costs and benefits; and whether corrections can be applied to account for any misunderstanding of the questions by respondents and for the hypothetical nature of the survey. This book will appeal to environmental economists and students in environmental and resource economics. Government staff at environmental agencies and survey researchers will benefit from the close analysis of previous applications. Contributors include: J. Burrows, H.M. Chan, L. Daniel, W. Desvousges, P. Dixon, H.Foster, J. Genser, B. Israel, M. Kemp, E. Leamer, J. Lustig, D. McFadden, D. MacNair, J. Martin, K. Mathews, K. Myers, R. Newman, G. Parsons, J. Plewes, J. Schneider, K. Smith Fayne, T. Tomasi, K. Train

This is a practical book with clear descriptions of the most commonly used nonmarket methods. The first chapters of the book provide the context and theoretical foundation of nonmarket valuation along with a discussion of data collection procedures. The middle chapters describe the major stated- and revealed-preference valuation methods. For each method, the steps involved in implementation are laid out and carefully explained with supporting references from the published literature. The final chapters of the book examine the relevance of experimentation to economic valuation, the transfer of existing nonmarket values to new settings, and assessments of the reliability and validity of nonmarket values. The book is relevant to individuals in many professions at all career levels. Professionals in government agencies, attorneys involved with natural resource damage assessments, graduate students, and others will appreciate the thorough descriptions of how to design, implement, and analyze a nonmarket valuation study.

Contingent valuation (CV) measures what is called passive use value or existence value. The CV method has been used to measure the benefits of environmental policy actions. CV measures of economic value rely on choice. In CV studies, choices are posed to people in surveys; analysts then use the responses to these choice questions to construct monetary measures of value. The specific mechanism used to elicit respondents' choices can take a variety of forms, including asking survey respondents whether they would purchase, vote, or pay for a program or some other well-defined object of choice. It can also be a direct elicitation of the amount each respondent would be willing to pay (WTP) to obtain an object of choice or the amount each respondent would be willing to accept (WTA) in compensation to give it up. This volume is composed of three sections. The first section provides background into the issues underlying the public and academic discussion regarding CV and the reliability of CV estimates of economic value. In addition, this section reviews the theory underlying the measurement of economic value and discusses those aspects of the theory most relevant to CV. The second section focuses on issues that have formed the core of the CV discussions including: sensitivity of WTP estimates to the size of the program offered, tests for theoretical consistency of CV results, and the sensitivity of results to context and numerous other features of the survey and its administration. The final section addresses the application of CV to actual economic valuation tasks and discusses the types of practical problems the CV researcher will encounter.