This article examines the role of the discount rate in making decisions that will have significant implications for the environment. The authors begin by providing a rationale for discounting in general and by describing the main factors that determine ...

We compare two approaches to mitigating hypothetical bias. The study design includes three treatments: an actual payment treatment, a contingent valuation (CV) treatment with a follow-up certainty question, and a CV treatment with a cheap talk script. Our results suggest that both the follow-up...

We construct a fishery model which simulates: (a) stochastic population fluctuations and (b) harvest shifts between commercial and sport user groups. This model then assesses, for both commercial and sport harvesters, the bioeconomic impact of an ongoing rehabilitation plan for the yellow perch...

Several contingent valuation studies have found that the open-ended format yields lower estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) than does the closed-ended, or dichotomous choice, format. In this study, WTP for a public environmental good was estimated under four conditions: actual payment in...

Environmental economists have traditionally addressed the issue of choice under uncertainty by applying the expected utility hypothesis. When policymakers face a panel of experts with widely divergent beliefs, the problem may more accurately be described as a case of choice under pure...

Existence values for obscure resources should not be ruled out a priori because consumers have limited time and resources for information gathering. Furthermore, to the extent that environmental "good things" are highly substitutable, existence values must be cautiously interpreted when...

A variety of regulations may affect commercial fish catches. We take here as a case in point steps to reduce losses of aquatic organisms due to impingement and entrainment (I&E) at power plants. Methods to evaluate the benefits of such measures are needed for benefit-cost analysis. We use a new...

Wisconsin's 600,000 deer hunters will bear the brunt of the economic losses from chronic wasting disease (CWD) in the Wisconsin deer herd. Though studies have not been done to pinpoint a precise value, preliminary estimates place the losses to deer hunters at between $70 million and $100 million...