PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Desvousges, William
AU  - Mathews, Kristy
AU  - Train, Kenneth
TI  - An Adding-up Test on Contingent Valuations of River and Lake Quality
AID  - 10.3368/le.91.3.556
DP  - 2015 Aug 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 556--571
VI  - 91
IP  - 3
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/91/3/556.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/91/3/556.full
SO  - Land Econ2015 Aug 01; 91
AB  - For a contingent valuation (CV) study of a bundle of water quality improvements, this paper tests whether the sum of the estimated willingness to pay (WTP) for each individual part of the package, evaluated incrementally, equals the estimated WTP for the entire bundle—as implied by standard utility theory. This is the first application of the adding-up test using incremental parts and Carson and Groves’s (2007) procedures to induce truthful respondents’ answers. The test is failed, which implies that either the CV method did not elicit truthful answers or that respondents’ true preferences are inconsistent with standard utility theory. (JEL Q51)