Stated preference methods using surveys to elicit willingness to pay have been shown to suffer from hypothetical bias and scope/scale bias. Hypothetical bias usually means that willingness to pay is exaggerated in the hypothetical scenario and scope/scale bias means that there is an...

This study investigates whether or not the scale bias found in contingent valuation (CVM) studies on mortality risk reductions is a result of cognitive restraints among respondents. Scale bias refers to insensitivity and non near-proportionality of the respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) to...

Abstract: Public investments are dynamic in nature, and decision making must account for the uncertainty, irreversibility and potential for future learning. In this paper we adapt the theory for investment under uncertainty for a public referendum setting and perform the first empirical test to...

Previous research on the willingness to pay (WTP) for risk reductions has almost systematically found the mean WTP for public risk reductions to be, both economically and statistically, significantly smaller than the mean WTP for private risk reductions. In this paper, we use socio-economic and...