Contingent valuation method (CVM) surveys have become a popular way of placing a monetary value on various aspects of the environment with the aim of determining whether the benefits of a proposed project outweighs the costs. Litigation over natural resource damages has used CVM results as evidence of the size of compensation required. However, despite attempts to set down definitive rules, survey redesign and data manipulation fail to address some key issues raised by CVM studies. Among these is evidence that modified lexicographic preferences, where the substitutability of environmental quality with other commodities is rejected, can be common. Human value formation with respect to the environment combines ethical and economic aspects in a more complex way than most economists have assumed. This paper reports new evidence confirming the influence of ethical beliefs about rights for endangered species in determining willingness to pay (WTP) responses to a CVM survey. One subsample of those holding rights are found to protest against payment, while others bid positively and have a significant impact on WTP. Less than half the total sample held ethical motives in accord with economic theory. Policies and instruments based upon the application of neoclassical utility theory will then be neither optimal nor provide the socially desired outcome.
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