Examining the Perceptions and Effects of Survey Consequentiality Across Population Subgroups

Recent research examining voting behavior in contingent valuation referenda informs on how consequential survey respondents behave and its impact on willingness to pay values."This research attempts to examine whether this behavior holds across population subgroups. We consider resident and non-resident users of artificial reefs and find improved construct validity for our resident models over non-resident models. Specifically, resident behavior is in line with a priori expectations with consequential residents more likely to vote in favor of a policy for additional reef funding – a result that is consistent with the “protest no” literature. Consequently, consequential resident voters exhibit a greater willingness to pay than inconsequential voters. Non-resident behavior differs, however. For this subgroup, consequentiality does not influence voting behavior and willingness-to-pay values do not differ by consequentiality. Overall, more work is required to appropriately identify willingness to pay values for non-resident populations, particularly from a benefit-cost perspective, where appropriately identifying subgroup WTP values are a critical component of measuring the net present value of a given policy. Key Words: