ECONOMIC IDENTITY, PRICE AND POLICY: WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR FRACKING REGULATION IN COLORADO

This paper considers public support for increased regulation of unconventional oil and gas development in Colorado. We examine the role of community economic identity and investigate the possibility of "colliding treadmills" in local political economies as drivers of policy preferences. We find that many place-based variables do little to predict regulatory support, but the cost associated with regulation (increased taxes) and political identity are especially important. Further, this paper is one of a handful of sociological analyses to employ the contingent valuation method for environmental valuation, in doing so it provides a first step toward establishing an empirically rigorous sociology of environmental valuation.