Value spillovers from the Korean DMZ areas and social desirability

This paper aims to examine the extent to which economic values for protection of internationally significant environmental and cultural resources are influenced by social desirability across geopolitical boundaries. Valuation results were examined using discrete choice models across three samples from Korea, China and Japan. The impact of social desirability on the protection value was tested as the relationship between willingness-to-pay estimates from the conventional "subjective" questioning approach (i.e., my preferences) and an alternative "projective" questioning approach (i.e., others' preferences). The results demonstrated significant spillover benefits and the extent to which value spillovers work is substantially influenced not only by types of resources and national backgrounds, but also by social desirability bias. Although the overall findings support significant global spillover effects, the potentially inflating impact of social desirability bias might mask their true gravity because the bias is likely to be stronger in the hosting communities than in the international counterparts. Weak global spillovers might be observed using the conventional subjective questioning even when they are substantial in reality. Accordingly, a stronger engagement of international communities in the conservation activities involving globally significant environmental and cultural heritage sites might be granted.