The Dynamics of Preference Elicitation after an Environmental Disaster: Stability and Emotional Load

Nonmarket valuation is commonly applied to infer the preferences of individuals for restoration policies after an environmental disaster. A crucial issue in this task is to determine the appropriate lapse of time after which the valuation techniques should be applied. This study investigates the role of the emotional load in explaining the dynamic patterns of elicited preferences. The results show that preferences tend to stabilize when the emotional load is also stable. The main implication is that attitudinal investigation of emotions could provide satisfactory information for determining the time frame for implementing more costly nonmarket valuation studies. (JEL Q51, Q54)