The Impact of Perceived Justice on Contingent Value Judgments1

We asked citizens suffering from road traffic about their willingness to pay for the building of a new road bypassing their home village. Opponents of the project were asked what they would consider adequate compensation for accepting the bypass. The perceived fairness of a monetary exchange was the only predictor for the decision in principle to pay or to claim compensation, whereas the exact amount was determined by the expected utility provided by the bypass. Norms of equity or equality introduced in 2 experimental priming conditions biased respondents' willingness to pay. We suggest feeding back the results of contingent valuation surveys into the public debate, instead of interpreting them as a static measure of economic preferences.