| 1.1 | Research Objectives |
Society values "cultural resources" such as monuments, building facades, and outdoor sculpture for a variety of aesthetic, cultural, and historical reasons. Value may be derived from direct use (e.g., visiting monuments), indirect use (e.g., viewing pictures of sculpture), and passive use (e.g., knowing that monuments will teach current and future generations about historical events). Given the vast distribution of cultural resources, it is likely that their value to society is significant. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about how the public values these resources. Aside from what can be inferred from visitation data or maintenance and renovation expenditures, there are almost no quantitative estimates of the overall value of these resources.
Even less is known about how the value of cultural resources may be affected by changes in the quality of these resources. Some cultural resources that are made of bronze or carbonate stone such as marble or limestone are injured by exposure to air pollutants. These injuries, which include surface erosion and soiling, might alter appearances to an extent that diminishes value. For example, a bronze statue that has lost its original patina may no longer be aesthetically pleasing, or a marble monument that has lost its inscription may have less historical value. Society derives benefits by avoiding such injuries or by slowing the rate at which they occur.
Such benefits are one of the research topics of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP), which is assessing the benefits and costs of the reduction in acid precipitation and its precursors (such as sulfur dioxide (SO2)) that is expected to be achieved under Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAA). The CAA requests that NAPAP provide an initial assessment of the expected costs and benefits of Title IV, and update this assessment periodically, incorporating new information as it becomes available. This study is intended to contribute to the information needed by NAPAP to assess the expected benefits of Title IV, in particular with regard to the reduction in injury to cultural resources. Specifically, we developed a method for valuing the benefits of reduced injuries to cultural materials, and applied our method to an important subset of the resource: marble monuments in Washington, D.C. Quantification of the benefits of reduced injury to cultural resources requires answers to many scientific and economic questions; this study is expected to contribute answers to selected questions, but alone it does not provide information sufficient to fully quantify this benefit category for Title IV.
Throughout this report we use the term "injury" to refer to the physical change in the appearance of monuments caused by air pollution. We use the term "damage" to refer to the economic valuation of the injury, and "benefit" to refer to the economic valuation of the prevention or reduction in the injury.
| 1.2 | Research Approach |
This study employed survey research methods to learn more about the values the public holds for the protection and preservation of cultural resources. After an initial scoping phase to develop a specific plan for the study, the study was limited to one type of material (marble), one category of cultural resources (monuments and selected historic buildings), and one geographic location of monuments (Washington, D.C.). The scope was limited in order to make the valuation exercise manageable.
Through scoping interviews, focus groups, and survey questionnaires, information was obtained about why people value marble monuments in Washington, D.C., and whether those values are affected by the types of injuries caused by pollution-related weathering. The study also obtained data on willingness to pay for reductions in injuries to marble monuments from survey respondents in Boston and Philadelphia, and used that data to derive estimates of the benefits of reducing the rate of injuries to marble monuments in Washington, D.C.
| 1.3 | Report Organization |
Chapter 2 provides a summary of the valuation concepts that are the basis of our research. It describes how we developed the preservation good that we value, which involved reviews of the scientific and economic literature, scoping interviews, and focus groups. Chapter 3 discusses the valuation formats selected for the survey, and presents the final draft of the survey instrument. The survey was administered in-person to groups of respondents. We review the survey implementation steps, sample design, and survey attendance results in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 presents the results of the survey, including the valuation modeling approaches and benefit estimates. The survey had two different value elicitation formats (pair-wise choices and payment card); we estimated independent models for each format, and compared the results. The report concludes in Chapter 6 with a summary and discussion of the implications of our findings and our recommendations for future research .
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Last Update: 1-9-98