Environmental economics and the conflation of value and benefit

This essay explores the relationship between willingness to pay (WTP) and w hatever conception of value or benefit it may be thought to measure. The es say argues that WTP correlates with no conception of the good-no notion of better or worse-other than WTP itself. The paper contends that concepts suc h as "welfare" or "well-being," rather than correlating empirically with WT P, function merely as proxies or stand-ins for it. If WTP fails to correlat e with any independently defined conception of value, then environmental ec onomics fails as a normative science. Even if WTP provided a meaningful mea sure of welfare or benefit, it could not serve as a criterion to assess the values that typically underlie environmental decisions. This is true becau se the reasons-ethical, religious, scientific, and political-that lead peop le to support or oppose a social policy often have nothing to do with the b enefits those people expect that policy to afford them. This essay deplores the penchant of economists to evaluate on the basis of WTP all policy posi tions except their own. As an alternative, this paper recommends representa tive political processes, such as "stakeholder" negotiations and collaborat ions, which offer deliberative, diverse, and therefore democratic approache s to resolving environmental disputes and solving environmental problems.