Deliberative Monetary Valuation (DMV) in Theory

Spash, Clive L. (2007): Deliberative Monetary Valuation (DMV) in Theory. Published in: Ecological Economics , Vol. 63, No. 4 (2007): pp. 690-699.

Abstract

This paper explores and contrasts the different social processes of valuation now appearing as economic means of valuing the environment. Monetary valuation via stated preference approaches has been criticised for assuming well formed and informed preferences and excluding a range of sustainability concerns such as rights, fairness and equity. Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) in small groups is a novel hybrid of economic and political approaches which raises the prospect of a transformative and moralising experience. Critics of standard contingent valuation approaches have advocated this as offering a way forward. However there has been a lack of clarity as to the means of obtaining values, the expected outcomes and their role. Moving to group settings of deliberation raises concepts of social willingness to pay and accept which are distinct from an aggregate of individual value, although this does not seem to have been widely recognised. A new classification of values is presented appropriate to the literature trying to merge economic and political processes. Values associated with the individual may be exchange values, charitable contributions or fair prices, while social values can be speculative, expressive or arbitrated. The use of DMV is shown to result in different values due to variations in the institutional setting and process of valuation.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Valuation; Environmental Values; Political Process; Participation; Deliberation; Cost-Benefit Analysis; Public Policy; Ethics; Willingness to Pay; Willingness to Accept; Exchange Value
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A13 - Relation of Economics to Social Values; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D61 - Allocative Efficiency ; Cost-Benefit Analysis; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D62 - Externalities; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q57 - Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services ; Biodiversity Conservation ; Bioeconomics ; Industrial Ecology; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q58 - Government Policy

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