| Affiliation: | (1) Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, 112-A Armsby Building, PA 16803 University Park, USA;(2) Agricultural University of Norway, 1432 Ås, Norway;(3) University of East Anglia, NR4 7JT Norwich, UK;(4) Home Office, 5W1H9AT London, UK;(5) Portuguese Catholic University, 169-005 Porto, Portugal;(6) Imperial College London, W2 1P6 London, UK;(7) Amsterdam Free University, 1081 HY Amsterdam, The Netherlands;(8) University of Vigo, 36200 Vigo, Spain |
| Abstract: | 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 Union s 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. |
