How Precise Are Monetary Representations of Environmental Improvements?

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Subjects valued environmental goods using a response mode expressing willingness to pay as a multiplier or divider of a purported "budgetary unit. " Hypothetical willingness to pay was found to be highly dependent on the size of the budgetary unit. Rejecting two other interpretations, we belieue the results suggest that people's contin-gent values are only vaguely represented in mone-tary terms; any dollar amount within a broad range is considered an acceptable expression of value. Although the procedures differ from those of a typical contingent valuation suruey, the results demonstrate some of the difficulties in discovering precise monetary values for environmental re-sources. (JEL Q21) I.