Contingent value (CV) surveys are used to estimate the economic value of nonmarket goods, especially environmental goods. A major concern with CV surveys is the potential for what have loosely been called hypothetical and strategic biases in the answers to CV questions. For a variety of reasons, often individual specific, a respondent's answer to a CV question may differ from his or her true value for the good. To address the potential problem of inaccurate bids, the initial version of the proposed rules for the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 called for all CV values.
