Ecological Economics, in press Section: News and Views

Many ecological and environmental economists are beginning to understand that the problems with the existing paradigm in contingent valuation are more fundamental than the rhetoric in the most authoritative writings on the topic suggest. Nevertheless, articles that address these problems openly remain rare in important journals that are defining the field. Authors seem to fear that their articles would be rejected by reviewers and editors who had ignored those same problems in previous research. But how should we hope to bring the field ahead if we do not feel free to talk about the fundamental problems of the “state of the art”? The aim of this commentary is to help foster this debate. I try to formulate more clearly than before what I perceive to be the fundamental problems of the existing paradigm. I will then argue that a closer look at economic theory, innovative research on environmental 1 valuation, and recent positive research on how people make choices in the political domain provide solutions to these problems. Together, these solutions amount to a new survey paradigm which, unlike the “state of the art”, is compatible with the larger bodies of related work in economics, psychology, and political science