ABSTRACT
Street light pollution obscures the visual detail of the night sky. Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) is the principal technique in micro-economics and welfare economics used to appraise projects and policies. BCA considers the benefits and costs of a project to all sectors of society, not just the benefits and costs to people benefitting from improved night sky visibility. willingness-to-pay (WTP) is the marginal valuation schedule, or the demand curve, for improved night sky visibility. The travel-cost method (TCM) estimates the number of trips as a function of travel and time costs of reaching a site. Stated preference (SP) methods can overcome these problems encountered in RP methods. SP asks consumers to state their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a good. Contingent Valuation (CV) involves the construction of a hypothetical, though realistic transaction, presenting a potential quality change to night sky visibility, in relation to a price to be paid by the individual.
