Is Sympathy an Economic Value? Philosophy, Economics, and the Contingent Valuation Method
Is Sympathy an Economic Value? Philosophy, Economics, and the Contingent Valuation Method
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同情心是经济价值吗？
DOI：
10.1016/b978-0-444-81469-2.50017-1
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发表时间：
1993
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Paul R. Milgrom
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Paul R. Milgrom
如果一种有毒的化学物质泄漏在荒野的溪流中，而人类的生活方式却没有受到影响，那么伤害已经造成了吗？对于那些关心动物、生态系统和环境的人来说，答案肯定是肯定的。有争议的是如何考虑和衡量损失的经济规模。这些指标影响着政府的决策，包括分配多少公共资金来防止泄漏，批准哪些私人部门在公共土地和财产上的项目，要求采取哪些缓解措施，等等。²此外，通过确定法院和机构对环境损害所评估的罚款，这种衡量影响了私人资源在环境保护活动之间以及这些活动与其他有价值用途之间的分配。关于环境资源的价值有几种可能的概念，但只有一种概念受到了经济学家的关注——基于公共物品理论的方法。在这一理论中，（纯）公共物品是一种物品，一旦被创造出来，就可以毫无排斥地为所有人提供，而且服务的总成本和质量不取决于被服务的人数。国防、教育电视广播和保护臭氧层就是例子。从“荒野即公共利益”的观点来看，一个完全无法进入的原始荒野地区的存在或维持是一种公共利益，因为许多人可以享受这种存在的知识，而不会出现任何拥堵或拥挤。对于一个人来说，一个永远不会被使用的原始荒野的价值，称为不使用价值，或存在价值，4是一个人愿意为保护原生态而支付的最大金额。社会整体的存在价值是所有个体存在价值的总和。自存在价值的概念被引入（Krutilla, 1967）以来的四分之一个世纪里，数十项研究和研究论文试图通过使用称为条件估值的调查方法来应用它，这种方法试图直接测量个人存在价值，或者包括存在价值的“总”价值。5
If a toxic chemical is spilled in a wilderness stream, leaving human lifestyles unaffected, has harm been done? To those concerned about animals, ecosystems, and the environment, the answer is surely yes. What is controversial is how to think about and measure the economic magnitude of the loss. These measurements affect government decisions about how much public money to allocate to prevent spills, which private sector projects on public lands and properties to approve, what mitigating measures to require, and so on. ² In addition, by determining the fines assessed by courts and agencies for environmental damage, such measurements influence the allocation of private resources among environmental preservation activities and between those activities and other valuable uses. There are several possible conceptions of the value of environmental resources, but only one has received much attention from economists-the approach based on the theory of public goods. In this theory, a (pure) public good is a good that, once created, is available to all without exclusion and for which the total cost and the quality of service do not depend on the number of people being served. National defense, educational television broadcasts, and protection of the ozone layer are examples. In the wilderness-as-public-good view, the existence or maintenance of a totally inaccessible wilderness area in its pristine state is a public good because knowledge of the existence can be enjoyed by many people without any congestion or crowding. The value to an individual of a pristine wilderness that will never be used, called the nonuse, or existence value, 4 is the largest amount that the person would be willing to pay to preserve the pristinity. The existence value to society as a whole is the total of all the individual existence values. In the quarter century since the idea of existence value was introduced (Krutilla, 1967), dozens of studies and research papers have sought to apply it by using survey methods called contingent valuations, which attempt to measure individual existence values directly, or “total” values that include existence values. 5