摘要：Parametric distributions applied to dichotomous choice contingent valuation datainvoke assumptions about the distribution of willingness to pay that may contra-vene economic theory. This article develops and applies distributions that allow theshape of bid distributions to vary. Alternative distributions provide little, if any,improvement in statistical ￠t from commonly used distributions. While medianwillingness to pay is largely invariant to distribution, estimates of mean consumersurplus diverge widely. Sensitivity analysis to determine bene￠t measure responseto distributional assumptions is essential to prevent erroneous policy advice fromapplied dichotomous choice research.
