VALUING THE PREVENTION OF NONFATAL ROAD INJURIES - CONTINGENT VALUATION VS STANDARD GAMBLES

In 1991, the UK Department of Transport commissioned a nationally representative sample survey with a view to estimating willingness-to-pay based monetary values for the prevention of non-fatal road injuries. The study design was somewhat unusual in that it involved not one but two main value elicitation procedures-contingent valuation and standard gambles. Although both procedures are rooted in the same conventional theoretical foundations, they produced substantially and systematically different empirical estimates of the values being sought. This paper reports the findings of the study and examines possible reasons for the disparities referred to.