Does Altruism Undermine Existence Value

Abstract The debate over the use of contingent valuation for existence values or passive-use values has failed to explore the validity of motives for such values. One potential motive, altruism, has conflicting implications for benefit-cost analysis, depending on whether the altruist is paternalistic. This paper constructs models of three types of altruism and shows how benefit-cost analysis responds to each type of altruism, how damage assessment and restoration depend on each type, and the implications of a population of heterogeneous altruists.

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