Response to cost prompts in stated preference valuation of environmental goods

Abstract

The stated preference discrete choice experiment, also known as conjoint analysis, is now a standard method for estimating non-use values of natural resources from respondents’ answers to survey questions.3 A choice experiment (CE) consists of a sequence of choices among several options, each offering various combinations of features together with costs (often expressed as taxes imposed on each household over some number of years). Through their choices respondents are presumed to reveal whether they would accept a given cost in exchange for a better level of a natural resource.