Many forest economists have worked in this area for many years, and most of us have had to resolve issues that involve unpriced benefits and costs. W Davis Professor of Forest Policy at Yale University. A first and crucial criterion might be phrased as a question. A single decision can rarely be traced to a given input, but I m sure many decisions have been based on such valuations. Nevertheless, the decisions that have ignored the valuations have often gained more publicity.
Contingent valuation is, of course, one of the methods to assess the values of unpriced benefits.
However, none of these three applications of contingent valuation was given any significant weight in the reports that followed or in the subsequent government decisions. They have changed, as two Australian examples will illustrate. The Roads and Traffic Authority in New South Wales now regularly measures the cost of noise and amenities through changes in the values of houses. The book covers a wide range of fields including forest management, highlights the monetary values estimated for unpriced benefits and costs, and discusses their strengths and weaknesses, in an explicit attempt to encourage the use of valuation methods and the values themselves. A third criterion might concern progress within the field of valuation itself.