Contingent Valuation: A View of the Conference and Associated Research

The research presented at this conference will almost certainly set the stage for contingent valuation (CV) research for the next several years. The topic is one that must be taken seriously. The issues are deep and challenging. The broad focus of the conference ranges from survey methodologies and the interpretations of survey data, to the behavioral foundations of economics and the relevance of welfare economics to matters of environmental policy and regulation. The researchers are some of the most prominent in the world, with credentials that read like a "Who's Who" of economics, law, and psychology. The conclusions drawn by the researchers are strong and critical of CV methodology. Researchers such as these do not put their scientific credentials on the line without substantial study and are, no doubt, prepared to defend and elaborate on their results. In the pages that follow, I speculate about the nature of the issues the conference has raised.