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Economic Valuation of Cultural Heritage Preservation in Road Planning


One of the challenges in developing sustainable urban environment and transportation policies is deriving measurable estimates of social costs as a consequence of urban sprawl. Among the environmental impacts of road development is damage to cultural heritage resources in which protection is embodied in both local and international policies. The paper aims to estimate the total economic value (TEV) of cultural heritage preservation as road cost externalities using travel cost (TC) and contingent valuation (CV) methodologies. The TC methodology uses revealed preference (RP) data while the CV methodology uses stated preference (SP) data, which is the willingness to pay (WTP) for two posed hypothetical scenarios describing two defrees of cultural heritage preservation. Two types of interview survey wre conducted to derive stated preference data: the pre-test survey using open-ended (OE)format; and the full-sample survey using double-bounded discrete choice (DC). WTP values derived from the survey show variances in terms of : scenario specifications, valuation methodology, income and elicitation method. Biases were detected due to the free-riding and 'yes' -saying tendency of the respondents in the WTP results and some limitations of the TC methodology. Estimates of the TEV are significant indicating that externalities of road prjects affecting cultural and histori sites cannot be taken for granted. However, more reliable estimates can be achieved if the biases are properly addressed.

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