Balanced Value Impact Model

Contingent valuation

Contingent valuation assesses the values associated with the user and non-user’s willingness to pay to continue accessing a service, or the willingness to accept if the service were to cease. Contingent valuation is based on understanding what people would be willing to pay for a particular good or service, for example library provision or visiting a museum exhibition. The techniques are based on constructing a hypothetical market for the non-market goods to be valued and then attaching prices to them by asking people directly about their willingness to pay or willingness to accept compensation for it.

This might prove to be a useful method for the cultural sector, if it is possible for people to estimate the ‘worth’ of such intangible benefits. This method relies heavily on interview and if asking a person to estimate worth in monetary terms will require well developed and detailed questions to avoid gaining meaningless or invalid answers. It is likely that to run a contingent valuation will require external expertise and may be costly.

See Case study 3.5: The value of the British Library in Delivering Impact with Digital Resources.

See also: Tessler, A. (2013) Economic Valuation of the British Library. Available at: https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/my-oxford/projects/245662

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