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Multicultural Evaluation of the Performance of Contingent Valuation for Forest Fire Prevention
Author(s) -
Loomis John,
GonzalezCaban Armando,
Hesseln Hayley
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
contemporary economic policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.454
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1465-7287
pISSN - 1074-3529
DOI - 10.1093/cep/byh030
Subject(s) - contingent valuation , willingness to pay , prescribed burn , valuation (finance) , ethnic group , african american , economics , multiculturalism , welfare , demographic economics , socioeconomics , geography , psychology , political science , forestry , finance , sociology , market economy , ethnology , law , microeconomics , pedagogy
This article evaluates the ability of contingent valuation to measure the benefits received by several ethnic groups from a prescribed burning forest fire reduction program similar to President Bush's Healthy Forest Initiative. Reasons for refusing to pay higher taxes for the prescribed burning program were not statistically different between African Americans, Hispanics, and whites. Mean willingness to pay of whites was $400, whereas for African Americans it was $505, but the difference is not statistically significant. The results suggest a substantial statewide willingness to pay by whites and African Americans for forest fuel reduction projects using prescribed burning in California. (JEL Q26 , Q23 , J15 )