This is a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), which asks what people would be willing to pay for an environmental good or attribute, or willing to accept for its loss. CVM is currently central to the assessment of environmental damage and has been the subject of considerable debate. Aimed at specialists, the book contains specially commissioned papers from both sides of that debate, as well as from commentators who see it as an interesting experimental tool regardless of the question of absolute validity of estimates. The book embraces the theoretical, methodological, empirical, and institutional aspects of the current debate, and looks at the method in US, European, and developing country contexts.