CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Stated preference valuation surveys often ask respondents for periodical payments, sometimes for the remaininglife of the individuals. Questionnaires do not usually specify whether those payments would vary accordingto inflation. This may be less important in low-inflation economies, but results could differ significantly inhigh-inflation countries. A contingent choice exercise was conducted to explore the severity of this effect in Argentina.The empirical application focused on an anthropogenic-pressure mitigation program for the basins ofthe Mendoza region. A comparison of willingness-to-pay results from a scenario where annual payments wereto be increased according to inflation with another of fixed annuities, found inflation to be significantly influentialon respondents' stated values. Furthermore, a test on the robustness of the estimated values found results to beconsistent with prior expectations.