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

Foundations of Stated Preferences Elicitation provides the reader with stated preference data collection methods, discrete choice models, and statistical analysis tools that can be used to forecast demand and assess welfare impacts for new or modified products or services in real markets, and summarize the conditions under which the reliability of these methods has been demonstrated or can be tested. One focus is the collection of preference and related data from consumer responses in hypothetical choice experiments, particularly conjoint analysis methods that have proven useful in market research. Another is the economic theory and statistical analysis of choice behavior, revealed or stated, and an economic framework for forecasting market demand and measuring consumer welfare. The treatment is informed by and benefits from experiments on perceptions and decision-making behavior in cognitive science and behavioral economics, and includes methods that can accommodate features of consumer choice that impact forecast reliability such as anchoring, adaptation to the status quo, and sensitivity to context. However, the authors' emphasis is on forecasting tools developed from traditional economic consumer theory and does not touch on the implications of behavioral consumer theory for demand forecasting.