Stated preference valuation is a term for survey-based methods which are often applied to estimate the willingness to payMaximum monetary amount an individual would be willing to pay in exchange for a particular good or service (Cameron & James, 1987). It can be used to describe people’s preferences, aggregated over individuals to estimate a v... More (WTP) for non-market goodsare the objects from ecosystems that people value through experience, use or consumption, whether that value is expressed in economic, social or personal terms. Note that the use of this term here goes well beyond a narrow definit... More (e.g., environmental public goodsPublic goods are non-rival (they cannot be exhausted) and non-excludable (there are no boundaries). An environmental example in the Contracts2.0 context is an open and beautiful landscape which can be enjoyed by one person without... More) or policies that deliver them. In contrast to revealed preferences methods (using observations on actual behaviour), they are based on hypothetical choices made in carefully designed situations (e.g., votes).
The most popular stated preference valuation methods are the contingent valuation (in which usually a single WTP-question is asked) and discrete choice experiments (DCE)are a stated preference valuation technique based on hypothetical choices individuals make in carefully prepared situations. It allows to formally model people’s preferences and estimate their willingness-to-pay for particular c... More (in which respondents are asked to repeatedly choose the most preferred alternatives that are described using selected attributes and attribute levels).
