DOES ALTRUISM UNDERMINE EXISTENCE VALUE

The debate over the use of contingent valuation for existence values o r passive-use values has failed to explore the validity of motives for such values. One potential motive, altruism, has conflicting implicat ions for benefit-cost analysis, depending on whether the altruist is p aternalistic. This paper constructs models of three types of altruism and shows how benefit-cost analysis responds to each type of altruism, how damage assessment and restoration depend on each type, and the im plications of a population of heterogeneous altruists. (C) 1997 Academ ic Press