Non-Use Values: Definitions & Examples
This is an excerpt from the paper...
(1) As a matter of public policy, the economic concept of "Non-use values" is at the center of political controversies concerning the environment. This is understandable: economics, for all its attempts to bring systematic order - or at least understanding - to the process of "Use values" interaction, is, at heart, always a political process. That is, human concepts of value are involved, values that are affected by such factors as morality, aesthetics, political philosophy, occupation, and the like. Indeed, emotions play a major part in human activities; it is remarked frequently that elections are influenced as much by last-minute emotional responses as by the reasoned judgement of the electorate. Socrates was condemned to death by an impassioned democratic vote, not well-considered legal debate. Emotions - human concepts of value - lie at the center of all political action. And political action is the final arbiter of economic policy. It is no wonder, then, that such an open-ended concept as Non-use values should provoke controversy; by its very nature Non-use values invite a conflict of interpretations. Adopting the definition of Cicchetti and Wilde (1992, p. 1121) as a convenient starting point, Non-use values can be described thus: Nonuse values measure aspects of the resource's value to individuals which individuals are not linked to actual resource use by the individual. The resources being considered are natural resources, although one could apply the No
. . .
o reach similar conclusions:
... this property cannot be counted on when CVM is used for actual decisionmaking; ... CVM is neither the only approach to estimating non-use values, nor obviously better than using methods that estimate only use-values.
Two points become immediately clear when examining the criticism of Non-use values. First, there is the attack upon methodology; this is a straightforward criticism of research techniques and is one that can be easily answered, as will be seen later. Second, it is noticed that most of the anti-Non-use value arguments relate to specific compensation issues relating to environmental issues. That is, in the political forum of "future-planning," legislators are not particularly listening to, or are not sufficiently educated enough to understand, the Use v Non-use calculations economists debate; to the politician, such matters are in the emotional realm of constituent reaction. By the same token, government administrators and politicians alike must take into account Non-use issues when faced with environmental disasters such as the Exxon Valdez incident in Alaska. It is here that specific compensation must be considered - and here that the debate among economists focusses.
Noted p
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Contingent Value, LA Harbor, , Angeles Harbor, Cicchetti Wilde, Peter Bohm, Michael Hanemann, Industrial Pollution, Option Existence, Chicago School-type, contingent value, non-use values, value methodology, contingent value methodology, angeles harbor, non-use value, contingent valuation, natural resources, los angeles, los angeles harbor, environmental issue, emphases mine, resources journal 34, contingent value survey, natural resources journal,
Approximate Word count = 2800
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Non-Use Values: Definitions & Examples
|