Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Eliciting Environmental Values A Constructivist Approach
EPA Grant Number: R824706Title: Eliciting Environmental Values A Constructivist Approach
Investigators: Fischhoff, Baruch
Institution: Carnegie Mellon University
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: October 1, 1995 through September 30, 1997 (Extended to September 30, 1998)
Project Amount: $99,987
RFA: Valuation and Environmental Policy (1995) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Justice
Objective:
There is increasing demand for thoughtful, systematic public input to environmental decisionmaking. It can be found in the citizen participation components of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) efforts toward environmental justice and risk prioritization. It can be found in the attempts by EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) and staff to survey public opinion for "unfinished business" and subsequent internal priority setting. It can be found in the need to assign dollar values to nonmarket environmental changes, a niche that contingent valuation often attempts to fill. Unfortunately, the challenges posed by these public policy problems far outstrips the conventional uses of survey research, the research paradigm most frequently called upon to provide solutions. The questions are much more complicated than those that investigators are accustomed to pose or that ordinary citizens are ordinarily required to answer, especially under the tightly constrained circumstances of the survey interview.This project is part of an ongoing attempt to develop an alternative methodology. The research has three foci: (1) how to compose complex questions, (2) how to help respondents to produce the best answers possible, and (3) how to characterize the definitiveness of the resulting responses (so that they can be used responsibly as a basis for public policy). Each focus has both a methodological and a substantive thrust. The next section briefly describes the articles that were supported by this grant, in whole or in part.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
The long-term methodological goal of the project of which this research is part is producing a broadly applicable methodology, which could be used by EPA and others concerned with securing informed public input regarding environmental decisions. The present grant has supported the following methodologically oriented papers: (1) Fischhoff (1997) presents an overview of the approach, and its relationship to those arising from other disciplines; (2) Fischhoff, Welch & Frederick (in press) present a framework for analyzing the construal processes that arise when respondents confront preference elicitation tasks, illustrated with empirical examples (including an evaluation of the BTU tax proposed early in the Clinton Administration, and a river cleanup); (3) Fischhoff (1998) considers these implications for the philosophy of the social sciences (in a paper presented originally at a workshop of philosophers of sciences, on values in science); and (4) Fischhoff (1999) develops conditions for public policy uses of the responses provided in preference elicitation studies, in public policy?by considering what would constitute informed consent of respondents for such uses.The long-term substantive goal of the project is to identify and address critical basic research issues that arise in the context of developing and applying the methodology. This involves bringing to bear on these environmental problems additional perspectives, drawn from psychology and other disciplines that have received less attention in areas typically dominated by investigators trained in economics and survey research. The present grant looked at these specific topics: (1) Frederick & Fischhoff (1998) present data and theory regarding the breadth and psychological underpinnings of magnitude insensitive valuation (sometimes known as "embedding," in the context of contingent valuation studies); (2) Fischhoff (1996) analyzes the ways in which public values can intrude on risk research, more or less deliberately; (3) Welch & Fischhoff (1998) studied the effects of informing respondents about the contingent valuation method, on responses to a CV-like task; and (4) Long & Fischhoff (1999) offer a formal model for determining the optimal strategy for allocating attention to evaluating a set of hazards, whose riskiness is incompletely understood.
We also have edited a special issue of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty devoted to preference elicitation (together with Charles Manski, Economics, Northwestern), drawing on papers from the 1997 Workshop of the University of California-Berkeley Econometrics Lab, honoring Dan McFadden's 60th birthday. It brings together eight conference papers along the frontier of collaboration between psychology and economics. Each was jointly reviewed by scholars from both disciplines and includes multidisciplinary commentary, intended to capture some of the flavor of the workshop discussion (Fischhoff & Manski, in press).
We have begun work on a chapter on cognitive issues in preference elicitation, for a forthcoming Handbook of Environmental Economics (Fischhoff & Frederick, 1999).
Journal Articles on this Report : 6 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
| Other project views: | All 10 publications | 9 publications in selected types | All 6 journal articles |
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Fischhoff B. Public values in risk research. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1996;545(1):75-84. |
R824706 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
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Fischhoff B, Welch N, Frederick S. Construal processes in preference assessment. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 1999;19(1-3):139-164. |
R824706 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
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Fischhoff B. Informed consent for eliciting environmental values. Environmental Science & Technology 2000;34(8):1439-1444. |
R824706 (Final) |
Exit Exit Exit |
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Frederick S, Fischhoff B. Scope (in)sensitivity in elicited valuations. Risk, Decision and Policy 1998;3(2):109-123. |
R824706 (Final) |
Exit |
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Long J, Fischhoff B. Setting risk priorities: a formal model. Risk Analysis 2000;20(3):339-351. |
R824706 (Final) |
Exit |
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Welch N, Fischhoff B. The social context of contingent valuation transactions. Society & Natural Resources 2001;14(3):209-221. |
R824706 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
environmental decisionmaking, public policy, decisionmaking, environmental justice, risk prioritization, methodology, psychology, social science, economics, survey, contingent valuation., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Ecology, Economics, Ecology and Ecosystems, decision-making, Social Science, Economics & Decision Making, alternative compensation, compensation, contingent valuation, ecosystem valuation, policy analysis, social psychology, surveys, surface water policy, risk reduction, social impact analysis, valuation, decision analysis, economic benefits, environmental assets, incentives, public issues, valuing environmental quality, cost benefit, economic incentives, environmental values, information dissemination, market valuation models, preference formation, standards of value, constructivist approach, environmental policy, industrial accounting, community-based, psychological attitudes, public values, public policy, willingness to pay, interviews, cost effectiveness, economic objectives, multi-criteria decision analysisProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.