Home

Personnel

Selected Projects

A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation

Discussion Papers

Software

Seminars

Links

How to Contact Us

Reliability and Validity of Nonmarket Valuation Approaches

In terms of the environment, public goods include such things as spectacular views, ecosystem protection, and species preservation. Efficient provision public goods relies on reliable and valid assessments of the value that people place on those goods. Established markets provide at best only rough indications of such values, which has led to the development of stated preference valuation methods. The studies reported in the following papers were performed to help improve stated preference methods for estimating the values of public goods.

Selected Publications

To view PDF files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free of charge from Adobe's website.

• Morrison, Mark and Thomas C. Brown. 2009. Testing the Effectiveness of Certainty Scales, Cheap Talk, and Dissonance-Minimization in Reducing Hypothetical Bias in Contingent Valuation Studies. Environmental Resource Economics. 44:307–326.
  (213 KB PDF file)
  
  
• Champ, P.A. and R.C. Bishop. 2006. “Is Willingness to Pay for a Public Good Sensitive to the Elicitation Format?” Land Economics. 82(2):162-173.

• Duffield, J.W., C.J. Neher, D.A. Patterson, and P.A. Champ. 2005. “Replication of a Cash and Contingent Valuation Experiment”. Proceedings from 2005 Western Regional Research Project W-1133: Benefits and Costs in Natural Resource Planning, Salt Lake City, UT.

• Champ, P.A., A. Alberini, and I. Correas. 2005. "Using Contingent Valuation to Value a Noxious Weeds control Program: The Effects of Including an Unsure Response Category." Ecological Economics 55: 47-60.

• Ajzen, Icek, Thomas C. Brown, and Franklin Carvajal. 2004. Explaining the discrepancy between intentions and actions: The case of hypothetical bias in contingent valuation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30(9): 1108-1121.

• Brown, Thomas C. 2003. Loss aversion without the endowment effect, and other explanations for the WTA-WTP disparity. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. 57(2005):367-379.
  (818 KB PDF file)

• Brown, Thomas C., Icek Ajzen, and Daniel Hrubes. 2003. Further tests of entreaties to avoid hypothetical bias in referendum contingent valuation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 46(2):353-361.
  (164 KB PDF file)

• Champ, Patricia A., Nicholas E. Flores, Thomas C. Brown, and James Chivers. 2002. Contingent Valuation and Incentives. Land Economics 78(4): 591-604.
  (215 KB pdf file)

• Champ, P.A., and R.C. Bishop. 2001. “Donation Mechanisms and Contingent Valuation: An Empirical Study of Hypothetical Bias.” Environmental and Resource Economics 19:383-402.

• Ajzen, Icek, Lori H. Rosenthal, and Thomas C. Brown. 2000. Effects of Perceived Fairness on Willingness to Pay. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30(12): 2439-2450.
  (418 KB PDF file)

• Loomis, John, Kerri Traynor, and Thomas Brown. 1999. Trichotomous Choice: A Possible Solution to Dual Response Objectives in Dichotomous Choice Contingent Valuation Questions. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 24(2):572-583.
  (441 KB PDF file)

• Brown, Thomas C., and Robin Gregory. 1999. Why the WTA--WTP Disparity Matters. Ecological Economics 28:323-335.
  (728 KB PDF file)

• Peterson, George L., and Thomas C. Brown. 1998. Economic Valuation by the Method of Paired Comparison, with Emphasis on Tests of the Transitivity Axiom. Land Economics 74(2):240-261.
  (901 KB PDF file)

• Champ, P.A., R.C. Bishop, T.C. Brown, and D.W. McCollum.  1997.  Using Donation Mechanisms to Value Nonuse Benefits from Public Goods. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 33(2):151-162.
  (352 KB PDF file)

• Loomis, John B.; Thomas C. Brown; Beatrice Lucero; and George L. Peterson. 1997. Evaluating the Validity of the Dichotomous Choice Question Format in Contingent Valuation. Environmental and Resource Economics 10:109-123.
  (546 KB PDF file)

• Loomis, John, Thomas Brown, Beatrice Lucero, and George Peterson. 1996. Improving Validity Experiments of Contingent Valuation Methods: Results of Efforts to Reduce the Disparity of Hypothetical and Actual Willingness to Pay. Land Economics. 72(4):450-461.
  (546 KB PDF file)

• Gregory, Robin, Thomas C. Brown, and Jack L. Knetsch. 1996. Valuing Risks to the Environment. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 545(May):54-63.
  (422 KB PDF file)

• Brown, Thomas C., Patricia A. Champ, Richard C. Bishop, and Daniel W. McCollum. 1996. Which Response Format Reveals the Truth about Donations to a Public Good? Land Economics 72(2):152-166.
  (735 KB PDF file)

• Gregory, Robin, Sara Lichtenstein, Thomas C. Brown, George Peterson, and Paul Slovic. 1995. How Precise Are Monetary Representations of Environmental Improvements? Land Economics 71(4):462-473.
  (551 KB PDF file)

• Ajzen, Icek, Thomas C. Brown, and Lori H. Rosenthal. 1995. Information Bias in Contingent Valuation: Effects of Personal Relevance, Quality of Information, and Motivational Orientation. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 30:43-57.
  (596 KB PDF file)

• Brown, Thomas C., Susan C. Barro, Michael J. Manfredo, and George L. Peterson. 1995. Does better information about the good avoid the embedding effect? Journal of Environmental Management 44:1-10.
  (445 KB PDF file)

• Brown, Thomas. C. 1993. Measuring nonuse value: a comparison of recent contingent valuation studies. In Benefits and Costs in natural resource planning, fifth interim report, W-133. University of Georgia, pp. 163-203.

  To top of page