Do Reminders of Substitutes and Budget Constraints Influence Contingent Valuation Estimates?

A test is performed of the recommendation by the NOAA panel on contingent valuation that respondents be reminded about other substitute resources and their budget constraint prior to answering the willingness-to-pay (WTP) question. The context for this experiment is a CVM study of the benefits from reducing fire hazards to old-growth forests in Oregon. The test was performed using two mail surveys that were otherwise identical except for the inclusion of reminder statements prior to the WTP question. The dichotomous choice logit equations were not statistically different between versions and the mean WTP results were identical.