Embedding, the notion that respondents to contingent valuation (CV) questions often value more than the researcher intends, has engendered extreme views. These range from the suggestion that embedding is so severe that it renders CV useless to the assertion that embedding can be eliminated by...

In 1996, Johannesson <italic>et al</italic>. published a paper entitled ‘The Value of Private Safety versus the Value of Public Safety’. Based on the preliminary evidence from a hypothetical contingent valuation study for public and private safety, these authors argue that consumers behave as ‘pure...

This study provides the first contingent valuation phone-mail comparison that meets current standards for response rates, draws from a general population, is relevant to the valuation of general environmental goods, and allows comparisons with actual participation rates. Social desirability...

Public referenda are frequently used to determine the provision of public goods. As public programs have distributional consequences, a compelling question is what impact, if any, do social preferences have on voting behavior. This paper explores this issue using laboratory experiments wherein...

This article considers whether communication can improve the efficacy of incentive mechanisms designed to correct the problem of moral hazard in groups. In particular, we use experimental economics methods to study environmental targeting instruments proposed by Segerson (1988) for regulating a...