Defining existence values of environmental resources

Traditionally, the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is one of the most accepted techniques to assess non-use value of environmental goods, but it is being debated due to its validity and reliability are being quest. In general, it reveals an individual's willingness to pay for improvements of environmental goods through a virtual market but neglects the irreversibility of environmental damage. In this paper, we present a framework by incorporating irreversibility of environmental degradation for the assessment of non-use value of environmental resources. The results of our analysis show that the existence value goes up but generation debt falls when humans' demand elasticity is low. In contrast, if the irreversibility of environmental damage arising from human behaviour such as extraction of resources, development of a site, etc., increases then the existence value goes up and the generation debt is enlarged.

[1]  David S. Brookshire,et al.  Existence Values and Normative Economics: Implications for Valuing Water Resources , 1986 .

[2]  Robert H. Nelson,et al.  Why existence value should not be used in cost‐benefit analysis , 1992 .

[3]  W. Michael Hanemann,et al.  Valuing the Environment through Contingent Valuation , 1994 .

[4]  Matthew J. Kotchen,et al.  Random effects analysis , 2003 .

[5]  N. Hanley,et al.  Environmental Economics: In Theory and Practice , 1996 .

[6]  Clive L. Spash,et al.  Ethics and environmental attitudes with implications for economic valuation , 1997 .

[7]  S. Funtowicz,et al.  The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science , 1994 .

[8]  John Holmberg,et al.  Defining the generational environmental debt , 1995 .

[9]  Ronald J. Glass,et al.  MEASURING THE EXISTENCE VALUE OF WILDLIFE - WHAT DO CVM ESTIMATES REALLY SHOW , 1991 .

[10]  David S. Brookshire,et al.  An experiment on the economic value of visibility , 1980 .

[11]  Mariano Torras,et al.  The total economic value of Amazonian deforestation, 1978-1993 , 2000 .

[12]  K. McConnell,et al.  Exploring existence value , 1987 .

[13]  Seung-Jun Kwak,et al.  A constructive approach to air-quality valuation in Korea , 2001 .

[14]  James R. Kahn,et al.  The economic approach to environmental and natural resources , 1995 .

[15]  Ahmed M. Hussen.  Principles of Environmental Economics , 2004 .

[16]  Örjan Wiidegren,et al.  The New Environmental Paradigm and Personal Norms , 1998 .

[17]  A. Dragun,et al.  Contingent Valuation and Endangered Species: Methodological Issues and Applications , 1996 .

[18]  Robin Attfield.  Existence value and intrinsic value , 1998 .

[19]  Herman E. Daly,et al.  The economic growth debate: What some economists have learned but many have not , 1987 .

[20]  D. Pearce,et al.  Economic Values and the Natural World , 1995 .

[21]  M. Sagoff,et al.  The Economy of the Earth: The Allocation and Distribution of Resources , 2007 .

[22]  N. Hanley,et al.  Preferences, information and biodiversity preservation , 1995 .

[23]  John B. Loomis,et al.  Economic benefits of rare and endangered species: summary and meta-analysis , 1996 .

[24]  Richard T. Carson,et al.  Contingent Valuation and Revealed Preference Methodologies: Comparing the Estimates for Quasi-Public Goods , 1995 .

[25]  A. Vatn,et al.  Choices without Prices without Apologies , 1994 .

[26]  Paul R. Portney,et al.  The Contingent Valuation Debate: Why Economists Should Care , 1994 .

[27]  Richard T. Carson,et al.  Temporal Reliability of Estimates from Contingent Valuation , 1997 .

[28]  David Karp.  Values and their Effect on Pro-Environmental Behavior , 1996 .

[29]  E. Wilson.  Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge , 1998 .

[30]  J. Averill,et al.  Values and economics in environmental management: A perspective and critique , 1996 .

[31]  John O'Neill,et al.  Ecology, Policy and Politics: Human Well-Being and the Natural World , 1993 .

[32]  Chung-Chiang Chen,et al.  The effect of finite resource on environmental policy , 2000 .

[33]  P. Stern,et al.  The New Ecological Paradigm in Social-Psychological Context , 1995 .

[34]  Willett Kempton,et al.  Ethics and Values in Environmental Policy: The Said and the UNCED , 1993 .

[35]  Federico Aguilera-Klink,et al.  The social construction of scarcity: the case of water in Tenerife (Canary Islands. , 2000 .

[36]  Sabine U. O'Hara,et al.  Discursive ethics in ecosystems valuation and environmental policy , 1996 .

[37]  Charles Perrings,et al.  Towards an ecological economics of sustainability , 1992 .

[38]  Dale Whittington,et al.  Administering contingent valuation surveys in developing countries , 1996 .

[39]  Robert Cameron Mitchell,et al.  Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: The Contingent Valuation Method , 1989 .

[40]  Richard T. Carson,et al.  Valuation of tropical rainforests: philosophical and practical issues in the use of contingent valuation , 1998 .

[41]  E. Jane Luzar,et al.  Willingness to pay or intention to pay: The attitude-behavior relationship in contingent valuation , 1998 .

[42]  K. Mayumi,et al.  Reformulating the foundations of consumer choice theory and environmental valuation , 2001 .

[43]  Paul P. Christensen.  Historical roots for ecological economics — Biophysical versus allocative approaches , 1989 .