Relevance of Cultural Features in Contingent Valuation: A Literature Review of Environmental Goods Assessments

This contribution is a literature review of contingent valuation (CV) applied to the assessment of environmental goods and municipal waste management (MWM), in particular. MWM activities and works do not guarantee private entrepreneurs a profit, so they are only conducted by public authorities. The positive externalities resulting from MWM can nonetheless be assessed and assigned a monetary value. The most often used approach in the environmental field is the contingent valuation method (CVM), which enables an estimation of the willingness to pay (WTP) for MWM. Given the paucity of empirical research on the economic sustainability of MWM, the aim of the present study is to review published CVM case studies in the field of waste management (municipal solid waste recycling, landfill mining). We collected 50 surveys on the WTP for MWM and established a set of statistically significant variables influencing the feasibility and/or enhancing waste treatment at the municipal level. The review underscores the prominent role of cultural factors, rather than strictly economic influences on the WTP for a given service. High levels of education and awareness of environmental issues and of the impact of waste management on the environment encourage people to pay more for enhancing MWM and to support new MWM policies. These data may be helpful in the design of further empirical research on other environmental activities, such as landfill mining, based on the benefit transfer (BT) methodology, given the lack of case studies and empirical research on these issues in southern Europe.