Why Economic Valuation Does Not Value the Environment: Climate Policy as Collective Endeavour

Economics takes an individualistic approach to human behaviour. This is reflected in the use of 'contingent valuation' surveys conduct cost benefit analysis for economic policy evaluation. An individual's valuation a assumed be unaffected by burdens it places on others. We report survey experiment test this supposition context climate change policy. Willingness pay mitigation was higher when richer individuals were bear costs than when, as usual, no explicit information provided about distribution. result inconsistent with usual interpretation contingent data. It also suggests that data may biased indicators acceptance. Additional questions suggest collective mode reasoning common.