Contingent valuation

Contingent valuation method (English Contingent Valuation Method - CVM ) is a method voiced preferences for the economic evaluation of non- tradable goods, including many environmental goods and services (English Ecosystem Services). Methods voiced preferences are direct assessment methods that work with surveys. In the simplest case, the respondent is presented and asked the modification of an (environmental) Guts " What would you be willing to pay a maximum, so that the presented change occurs? "

History and application

, Originated the method in the evaluation of soils, initiated in the 1940s by Siegfried Ciriacy - Wantrup. Later it was applied in both the environmental and health and tourism. The related method of choice experiments also found in marketing and transportation applications.

The contingent valuation was born out of the need to provide useful but non-marketable resources in relation to tradable goods in order (eg, in monetary units ) to measure their benefits quantitatively. The related to the Conjoint Analysis and Choice experiments technique allows statements about how respondents evaluate example, habitats for threatened species or measures to improve air quality.

The results of the analyzes are used on the one hand the policy as a basis for determining the amount of fees or expenses for protective measures. On the other hand, can thus be estimated the damage caused by economic use of the environment or other non- market goods. The method is still relevant in welfare economics, in order to compare the non- market values ​​of alternative courses of action within the framework of a cost -benefit analysis. The contingent valuation method captures all economic values ​​of environmental and similar goods, including their so-called existence value.

Problems

Several factors make sufficient distortion-free determination of the preferences of the respondents, including:

• The respondents before the survey only little knowledge about the good being valued. To work around this problem, CVM has been increasingly combined since 2000 with deliberative methods in which through workshops and focus groups, a preference formation should take place before the participants are confronted with questionnaires.
• It is difficult to estimate for the respondent as a quantitative change in the provision of the good affects their concrete life world.
• The estate, or its effects are subject to risks and uncertainty.
• The respondents consider in questionnaire hypothetically presupposed (environmental) improvement is not credible.
• If the survey is conducted as a personal interview, it can - as with all interview -based surveys - happen that respondents try the ( presumed ) intentions or the interviewer / in suit ( interviewer bias).
• Respondents express not their "true" preferences, but respond strategically to guide the evaluation result in a certain direction. This criticism has expressed Paul Samuelson in his article on The Pure Theory of Public Expenditures from 1954, in which he an economic analysis of public goods undertook first.
• The question format may have an undesirable influence on the result. Replying to a question as to the minimum compensation requirement ( willingness to accept compensation ) at an environmental quality deterioration will fail usually higher than the answer to a question on the maximum willingness to pay ( willingness to pay ) for an equally large environmental improvement.
• In addition, it makes the embedding effect, the decision maker (eg, legislators ) difficult to derive concrete recommendations for action from the method.