Modeling self-censoring of polluter pays protest votes in stated preference research to support resource damage estimations in environmental liability

The identification and treatment of protest response in stated preference (SP) research such as contingent valuation is an underdeveloped area. Protest related to the polluter pays principle (PPP) is expected to pose an important hurdle to the application of SP research in environmental liability claims, for instance under the European Environmental Liability Directive. Our main objective is to test the effect of PPP induced protest votes on welfare measures for lost passive use value using different treatment procedures. We argue for a more reliable and defensible indicator of willingness to pay (WTP) in environmental liability litigation cases than current standard removal practices in cases where protest votes affect sample representativeness. Analyzing the impact of PPP-based protest response on WTP values with the help of a Full Information Maximum Likelihood sample selection model, a significant correlation is found between the decision to participate in the CV market and the WTP bids. Self-censoring biases average WTP and is correlated with factors such as respondent use of the resource and disposition towards its future protection. Simply removing protest response from the sample is indefensible and results in a biased estimation of WTP.     

Are Internet surveys an alternative to face-to-face interviews in contingent valuation?

Internet is an increasingly popular data collection mode for stated preference research in environmental economics. However, little is known about how this survey mode may influence data quality and welfare estimates. As part of a national contingent valuation (CV) survey estimating willingness to pay (WTP) for biodiversity protection plans, we assign two groups of respondents either to an Internet or face-to-face (in-home) interview mode. Our design aims to better isolate measurement effects from sample composition effects by drawing both samples from the same sample frame. We find little evidence of social desirability bias in the interview setting or satisficing (shortcutting the response process) in the Internet survey. The share of “don't knows”, zeros and protest responses to the WTP question with a payment card is very similar between modes and equality of mean WTP cannot be rejected. Results are fairly encouraging for the use of Internet in CV as stated preferences do not seem to be significantly different or biased compared to face-to-face interviews.     

Contingent valuation of ill health caused by pollution: testing for context and ordering effects

Contingent valuation is being increasingly used to value episodes of ill health caused by environmental pollution. In contrast to studies that have used contingent valuation to value other types of non-market goods, health episode valuation studies have tended to 1) value several ill health episodes or symptoms in the same survey, and 2) be vague in the survey instrument about the cause of the ill health, how it would be avoided or how the improvement would be paid for. The resulting values are then combined with exposure-response functions to generate economic estimates of health damages from pollution. This study tests whether episode valuation responses are sensitive to two of these design features. In a five-country study using split sample treatments, neither episode ordering nor mention of the cause of the ill health influenced stated willingness to pay to avoid specific ill health episodes.JEL Classification: C42, I12, Q51 Correspondence to: Richard ReadyThis research was supported by the European Unions Environment and Climate Research Programme: Theme 4 - Human Dimensions of Environmental Change (contract no. ENV4-CT96-0234). Any views expressed in the paper are not necessarily the views of any of the authors employers.     

Natural resource valuation with a tribal perspective: a case study of the Penobscot Nation

The unique settings of tribal lands and preferences of tribal members can complicate the effective application of standard natural resource use valuation tools within these tribal settings. We present a study which utilised referendum format contingent valuation methods to value foregone tribal use of the dioxin-contaminated Penobscot River in Maine. The Penobscot Nation’s prior experience in using referendums to evaluate cash settlement offers provides a unique setting for this application. The valuation responses pass a scope test and are consistent with a priori expectations of economic theory as well as individual attitudes and beliefs. Implicit discount rates based on the valuation of two clean-up periods are plausible. The response model indicates that cultural motives are a significant basis of foregone use values. While each tribal setting presents unique characteristics and challenges, the presented application demonstrates how carefully applied standard valuation tools, when appropriately designed to account for and incorporate tribal history, settings, and perspective, can yield defensible estimates of resource valuation.     

Existence Value and the Contingent Valuation Method

People express concern about the possible extinction of animal species which they will never see, about damage to wilderness areas they will never visit, and so on. Such concerns are often interpreted by economists in terms of 'existence' or 'passive use' values. Three views have been proposed regarding the appropriate way of dealing with existence values in benefit-cost analysis. First, the existence values and concerns about environmental preservation that are not related to use may be disregarded. Second, concerns about environmental preservation may be taken into account, but not interpreted as existence values or evaluated in monetary terms. Third, the benefit-cost analysis may be modified to incorporate monetary estimates of existence values. Advocates of the third approach have developed a range of techniques for eliciting existence values, collectively referred to as the contingent valuation method. In this paper, the concept of existence value and the techniques of contingent valuation are surveyed, with the aim or providing a basis for comparisons of the three approaches described above.     

A Bayesian Approach to Double Bounded Contingent Valuation

In this paper we propose a Bayesian approach to model double bounded contingent valuation data. The double bounded elicitation method is interpreted as a two tier iterated process in which the subject is allowed to have a second thought about his/her valuation for the environmental good. Prior information is modelled from the answers to the first dichotomous choice question. The model is Quasi-Bayesian (Q-B) in that the prior distribution refers to mean willingness to pay while the likelihood function refers to the proportions of a multinomial distribution. This model is applied to empirical data from a contingent valuation survey involving the valuation expressed by European tourists for access to natural areas in the Canary Islands. Results show that point estimate of consumer surplus computed with the Q-B model does not differ substantially from single bounded model estimation. In addition, double bounded seems to be quite robust to the choice of the prior model of willingness to pay responses. Comparison with open ended suggests that the Q-B model might be useful to control for strategic response and starting point biases.     

Correcting for the endogeneity of pro-environment behavioral choices in contingent valuation

In contingent valuation studies, observed behavioral choices often enter as independent variables in the willingness to pay function. However, these variables may be endogenously determined when the error term in the behavioral model is correlated with the error term in the willingness to pay model. We investigate the effects of correcting for the endogeneity of a variable, namely membership status in environmental organizations that proxies unobservable characteristics of the respondents. Jointly modeling the membership variable and the willingness to pay response yields an estimate for the effect of the former that contradicts previous findings but is intuitive and agrees with theoretical expectations.     

Reducing protest responses by deliberative monetary valuation: Improving the validity of biodiversity valuation

This paper focuses on examining the validity of biodiversity valuation methodologies. The results of a group deliberation technique (deliberative monetary valuation) are compared to those derived from a contingent valuation (CV) survey using the same environmental topic. Evidence is here presented that DMV can address some of the limitations of CV; namely a prevalence for lexicographic preference ordering due to psychological reasons and the lack of a priori or well-formed preferences. Both of these methodological shortcomings can result in protest responses which decrease the external validity of results. It is common environmental valuation methodology practice to exclude protest responses from the analysis on the grounds that they are illegitimate choices, thus the sample and consequently the environmental valuation analysis may become less representative of the population. An advantage of the DMV methodology is that it was found to significantly reduce the rate of protest responses to less than half (from 29% to 13%). Furthermore, DMV significantly increased the proportion of positive bids but not the amounts contributed. In relation to preference formation issues, we suggest rethinking the current practice of the DMV method, and propose dedicating the entire initial discussion session to introducing the good outside of a valuation context.     

Using Choice Experiments to Value the Environment

This paper we outline the “choice experiment” approach to environmental valuation. This approach has its roots in Lancaster's characteristics theory of value, in random utility theory and in experimental design. We show how marginal values for the attributes of environmental assets, such as forests and rivers, can be estimated from pair-wise choices, as well as the value of the environmental asset as a whole. These choice pairs are designed so as to allow efficient statistical estimation of the underlying utility function, and to minimise required sample size. Choice experiments have important advantages over other environmental valuation methods, such as contingent valuation and travel cost-type models, although many design issues remain unresolved. Applications to environmental issues have so far been relatively limited. We illustrate the use of choice experiments with reference to a recent UK study on public preferences for alternative forest landscapes. This study allows us to perform a convergent validity test on the choice experiment estimates of willingness to pay.     

Moose Hunting Values in Sweden Now and Two Decades Ago: The Swedish Hunters Revisited

This paper is based on two national contingent valuation studies dealing with the extent and economic values of hunting in Sweden. The first valuation study was conducted in 1987 and the second in 2006. Both the game resource and the hunter community have undergone changes in the two decades covered by the surveys. An important purpose of the latter survey was to repeat relevant parts of the former one, which created a rare opportunity to compare valuations covering a very long time span. Moose hunting value and its determinants were compared between the two studies, showing that significant changes have taken place. Our analysis suggests caution in using results from old contingent valuation studies for e.g. benefits transfer exercises.     

Valuing externalities from energy infrastructures through stated preferences: a geographically stratified sampling approach

The externalities produced by high-voltage transmission lines are multidimensional, may strongly depend on the local context, and are thus difficult to capture through standard environmental valuation exercises. We experiment a GIS approach to design a geographically stratified contingent valuation sample of the population resident in infrastructure corridors in a whole region. We estimate, by means of a binary choice logit model, the perceived marginal damage from impacts of power lines on human health, the landscape and the environment. Specific treatment is given to qualitatively different forms of impact, namely real estate depreciation versus diffused perception of damage, arising at different distances from the lines. The set of GIS-based variables (proximity to power lines, presence of other infrastructure, endowment of natural and built heritage and other local context variables) prove to be significant predictors in the utility function of resident households. Finally, we compute simulated values that combine information on individual’s willingness to pay, population density and the dimension of the considered corridor around the infrastructure, so as to generalize the outcomes of case-specific studies for use in policy choices such as infrastructure localization, undergrounding and negotiation of compensations.     

The effect of distance on willingness to pay values: a case study of wetlands and salmon in California

Most contingent valuation studies in the literature utilized a pre-determined geographic market area for their sample frame. In other words, they did not include variables that would measure the extent of the geographic areas over which to aggregate willingness to pay. These studies implicitly assumed that the effects of geographic distance were moot; an assumption that could have led to an understatement of the aggregate benefit values computed in these studies. The overall goal of this study was to determine if distance affects willingness to pay for public goods with large non-use values. The data used came from a contingent valuation study regarding the San Joaquin Valley, CA. Respondents were asked about their willingness to pay (WTP) for three proposed programs designed to reduce various environmental problems in the Valley. A logit model was used to examine the effects of geographic distance on respondents' willingness to pay for each of the three programs. Results indicate that distance affected WTP for two of the three programs (wetlands habitat and wildlife, and the wildlife contamination control programs). We calculate the underestimate in benefits if the geographic extent of the public good market is arbitrarily limited to one political jurisdiction.     

Valuing water level changes in reservoirs using two stated preference approaches: An exploration of validity

The combination of travel cost (TCM) and contingent behaviour (CB) methods is a relatively new research avenue in the recreational valuation community. Contrary to simple TCM applications, TCM-CB facilitates the ex ante valuation of marginal welfare effects resulting from environmental quality or quantity changes, similar to the contingent valuation method (CV). Even though TCM-CB is highly policy relevant, i.e. to inform changes in management regimes at recreational sites, the validity of estimates has hardly received any attention and little is known about the performance of TCM-CB compared to CV. In this paper, TCM-CB and CV are explored with respect to several validity tests in a case study on the recreational effects of water level changes in a reservoir. Overall, the findings reveal that TCM-CB and CV perform equally well in terms of theoretical validity, but that the marginal recreational value varies significantly between the two methods. We also observe that both methods face similar internal difficulties with respect to the stability of values when the order of a set of valuation questions is changed.     

A comparative study of environmental amenity valuations

The paper reports on a comparative study of direct and indirect approaches to valuing environmental amenities (i.e., public goods), specifically, air quality in terms of its human health effects. The application of three indirect valuation methods (via market goods) is reported here: the health production method, a consumer preferences (for nonmarket goods) model, and the cost of illness method. The first and second methods are (economic) behavior-based approaches where willingness to pay for an environmental good is derived by exploiting relationships in consumption between the public good and market good(s). The third method is based on a physical relationship—a dose-response function—between the environmental good and health. The direct valuation approach encompassed three contingent valuation elicitation formats: open-ended, modified iterative bidding game, and referenda-style binary choice. The application of all four methods was based on data from a survey of a large, stratified sample of households from the Haifa metropolitan area in northern Israel. The estimates of welfare change derived by the various methods are discussed and compared.     

Respondent direct experience and contingent willingness to pay for new commodities: a switching endogenous interval regression analysis

Most environmental economists argue that direct experience with the good being valuated, or with similar goods, is a precondition for providing valid willingness to pay (WTP) responses to contingent valuation questions. Two questions are posed in this article. The first is whether previous use experience of a resource (Séné nature reserve) similar to that being valuated (future nature reserves) and located in the same geographical area (Gulf of Morbihan) impacts on WTP. The second is whether accounting for the endogeneity of direct experience matters in the estimation of WTP. We find that respondents who have not experienced the Séné nature reserve provide value estimates that are statistically comparable to that of respondents who have experienced it. Our assumption is that respondents have acquired sufficient and adequate experience of future nature reserves from the questionnaire that experience obtained by experiencing the Séné nature reserve was not necessary for making a valid value formulation. Hence, aggregation of WTP estimates to obtain a total valuation of the future nature reserves is reasonable over the full target population. In addition, our results show that direct experience is endogenously determined; but controlling for the endogeneity has a marginal effect on WTP estimates.     

Valuing the Incremental Benefits of Groundwater Protection when Exposure Levels are Known

Both economic theory and psychological research indicate that benefit functions for reductions in health risk exposures may be conditional on current exposures. Using nitrates found in household wells, it is demonstrated that perceptions of health risks across exposure levels are affected by the individual's current exposure level, thus providing support for a conditional benefits function approach. Functions of conditional incremental benefits are estimated from a contingent valuation study of households that had been informed of their water test results. Incremental benefits reach a peak at an intermediate level of nitrates and then decline. Possible explanations for this non-convexity are provided.     

On the Origins of Property Rights: Conflict and Production in the State of Nature

I analyse the emergence of property rights in a model of conflict and production in the absence of institutions of enforcement. The population of agents evolves dynamically through conflicts for possession of factor goods among pairs of randomly matched agents. Conflicts are incomplete information wars of attrition with an agent's type consisting of his or her independently drawn valuation of the prize and cost of competing for it. I prove equilibrium existence and show that in the steady state of the game, the population sorts into two stable groups (resource "haves" and "have-nots") in accordance with a known function of their primitive types.     

Scale-perception bias in the valuation of environmental risks

The valuation of environmental risks is commonly approached with the utilization of stated preference methods such as contingent valuation. In these methods, money is utilized as the scale that reflects the individual's underlying utility function. However, this scale can vary across individuals due to different perceptions on what are the right or appropriate bounds for Willingness To Pay (WTP). In this article, we test for scale-perception bias and propose a correction method based on the utilization of anchoring vignettes that define different degrees of preference for the nonmarket good. The proposed method is applied to study the commonly found anomaly ‘probability neglect’, which is defined by the insensitivity to the probability levels in the valuation of environmental risks. The results show that probability neglect disappears when WTP responses are corrected for self-perception bias through the utilization of the anchoring vignettes approach.     

Anchors,endorsements, and preferences: A field experiment

This study investigates how access to political endorsements affects stated preferences for an environmental public good in Switzerland. We developed a contingent valuation survey questionnaire with two valuation questions, the first formulated as a (hypothetical) policy referendum, the second an open-ended WTP question. For the referendum question we solicited endorsements from a range of political parties and relevant interest groups. We then conducted a split-sample mail-survey experiment in which a table listing the endorsements was included with a subsample of the questionnaires. Access to the policy endorsements significantly affected the responses to the open-ended willingness-to-pay question.     

Valuing Global Ecosystem Services: What Do European Experts Say? Applying the Delphi Method to Contingent Valuation of the Amazon Rainforest

Valuing global public goods like the Amazon rainforest by stated preference surveys of a representative sample of the global population would be very costly and time consuming. We explore the use of the Delphi Method in contingent valuation (CV) by asking a panel of 49 European environmental valuation experts in two rounds what they think would be the result if a European CV survey of Amazon Rainforest protection plans was conducted. The experts’ best guess for the mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) by European households for preserving the current Amazon Rainforest, and thus avoiding a predicted loss in forest area by 2050 from currently 85% to 60% of the original forest in the 1970s, was 28 € per household annually as an additional income tax. Aggregated over all European households this amounts to about 8.4 billion € annually. This preliminary estimate indicate that WTP of distant beneficiaries is substantial, and could justify preservation of global ecosystem services where aggregated benefits of the local population often do not exceed the opportunity costs of preservation in terms of lost income from commercial activities. The income elasticity of WTP with respect to per-capita income in the European countries is 0.5–0.6. Recognizing the limitations and assumptions of the Delphi CV method, it could still be a time saving and cost-effective benefit transfer tool for providing international donors with much needed order-of-magnitude estimates of the non-use value of ecosystem services of global significance.