ABSTRACT
In chapter 8 we asked whether respondents could provide meaningful answers to CV scenarios given the hypothetical character of the markets, their complexity, and their novelty. Although we concluded that meaningfulness is a much more serious problem for the methodology than the threat of strategic behavior, our reading of the attitude-behavior literature suggested that surveys have the potential to obtain valid data on people's willingness to pay for well-defined public goods. How well do surveys realize this potential? In order to answer that question we must first clarify a subject of some confusion in the contingent valuation literature: the assessment of validity. After addressing that task in the first part of this chapter, we will examine the results of tests of the CV method's validity.
