Authors : 1Xu Zhongmin , 2Cheng Guodong and 3Long Aihua
Abstract: Contingent valuation methods are usually accompanied with large costs. The empirical analysis of Ejina ecosystem service survey shows that information entropy can be used to judge if survey sample amounts are appropriate. Analysis results showed that choosing 400 samples can get information equivalent to distribute 646 samples in our empirical survey. Simultaneously, the calculated average mutual information and statistical test showed that we should investigate related social economic information with interviewee to decreasing uncertainty. The categories of education level, income, census register and residence site of interviewee should be preferred investigated, which can get more average mutual information and have significant influence on mean willingness to pay than the categories of age and sex. Usually, the higher average mutual information of interviewee`s social economic information, the higher the influence of social economic information on the willingness to pay.
1Xu Zhongmin , 2Cheng Guodong and 3Long Aihua , 2004. Applying Information Entropy to Decide the Sample Amount and Content in Contingent Valuation Survey . Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences, 2: 171-175.