El Complejo Cultural SODRE de Montevideo: La Disposición a Pagar por un Bien Público Mixto.

Abstract

The paper concerns with the presentation of some interesting results of a Contingent Valuation analysis (CV) of a public project oriented to rebuild the SODRE Theatre, a traditional lyric theatre at Montevideo city burnt in 1971. This paper present some methodology issues concerning the valuation of a mixed public good, with the emphasis focus on the results of the econometric analysis of the data generated by a Contingent Valuation Survey. The results of the CV analysis reveal that actually the consumers of Classic music, Ballet or Opera (C.B.O.) represents a small percentage of the citizens of Montevideo. In spite of this statistics, the econometric analysis identify a positive Willing-to-Pay associated to non-use values related to the reconstruction of the cultural heritage of the city, and to the option price to go to the SODRE Theatre and consume classic peforming arts in the future. The estimated aggregated Willing-to-Pay for the project through an specific tax shows that the Montevideos’ citizens ‘approve’ the public decision to implement the reconstruction of this new theatre.