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Abstract
This paper presents the method and findings of a contingent valuation (CV) study that aimed to elicit United Kingdom
citizens' willingness to pay to support legislation to phase out the use of battery cages for egg production in the European Union
(EU). The method takes account of various biases associated with the CV technique, including 'warm glow', 'part-whole' and
sample response biases. Estimated mean willingness to pay to support the legislation is used to estimate the annual benefit of
the legislation to UK citizens. This is compared with the estimated annual costs of the legislation over a 12-year period, which
allows for readjustment by the UK egg industry. The analysis shows that the estimated benefits of the legislation outweigh
the costs. The study demonstrates that CV is a potentially useful technique for assessing the likely benefits associated with
proposed legislation. However, estimates of CV studies must be treated with caution. It is important that they are derived from
carefully designed surveys and that the willingness to pay estimation method allows for various biases.
© 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.