Aiding priority setting in health care: is there a role for the contingent valuation method?

The paper discusses some methodological and measurement aspects with the contingent valuation (CV) method which appear to create problems when eliciting preferences for the relative social valuation of alternative health care programmes. After pointing to biases which tend to exaggerate the true valuations, emphasis is placed on framing issues when applied to health care. Thereafter the paper discusses the extent to which preferences elicited through one's willingness to pay can be used to infer how the respondent would prioritize between the health care programmes in question. New empirical evidence is presented which suggest discrepancies between a CV ranking and the ranking expressed when making a direct ordinal comparison.