DO CONTINGENT VALUATION ESTIMATES PASS A SCOPE TEST - A METAANALYSIS

This paper considers the scope test proposed to judge the internal con sistency of contingent valuation estimates. The test is shown to be qu ite sensitive to the maintained hypotheses required to derive fairly p recise expectations for the properties of WTP functions, and, therefor e, a different approach may be needed in gauging the reliability of CV . This paper describes an approach that relies on a weight-of-the-evid ence criterion and uses meta-analysis to develop a systematic appraisa l of what the economic values of changes in amenity resources are. The approach is illustrated for the case of estimating people's willingne ss to pay for improving (or maintaining) visibility at the national pa rks. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.