Item

Cultural sensitivity of the contingent valuation method

Lambert, Ray
Saunders, Lindsay
Williams, Tracy
Date
1992-09
Type
Other
Fields of Research
Abstract
Resource management decision making usually involves balancing the costs of a public policy with the benefits. In the last two decades there has been growing recognition that the public good nature of resource management issues has meant that the environmental costs and benefits associated with policy options have been difficult, if not impossible, to measure. This measurement difficulty has often resulted in environmental costs and benefits being excluded from resource management policy evaluations or inaccurately approximated. In an attempt to overcome this difficulty several economic valuation techniques have been developed. These techniques have been used to measure benefits, gained from the presence of national parks, improved water quality, improved flood protection, and numerous other natural resources. These benefits are not ordinarily priced in markets and are called non-market goods or services. In the first three chapters of this publication the theoretical basis of contingent valuation (CV), and Fishbein and Ajzen's model for measuring attitudes are discussed. In Chapter Four the case study used in this research - options for improved sewage disposal in Dunedin - is described. Methods used to compare attitudinal data with assigned non-market values are described in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 contains the results of the comparative analysis. The publication concludes with a general discussion of research findings from this project and areas for future CV research.
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Copyright © Centre for Resource Management.
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