The Values Jury to Aid Natural Resource Decisions

Congressional legislation emphasizes that public resource allocation should reflect the values citizens assign to those resources. Yet, information about assigned values and preferences of members of the public, including economic measures of value, required by decision makers is often incomplete or unavailable. Existing sources of information about the public's values, for use in resource allocation decisions and damage assessment, include existing markets, public surveys (including contingent valuation), and public involvement. Each of these sources has serious limitations.