Acid Rain Survey

Respondent experience (i.e., a respondent's information set) has long been suspected to influence contingent valuation estimates of environmental values. We assess the influence of experience by explicitly modeling the relationship between respondent experience and both fitted individual resource values and the conditional variance of these estimated values.

We adapt the theoretical state-preference model to value nonmarket public goods under individual uncertainty about use, illustrating with an assessment of willingness-to-pay to prevent acid rain lake damage in the northeast United States. Individual usage uncertainty is modelled via probabilities of participation in trout fishing. We produce quantitative welfare measures, including individual fitted and simulated passive- and active-use values, individual expected consumer surplus, option price, option value, and complete individual willingness-to-pay loci.