The objective of this research was to examine some incentive and informational properties of contingent valuation surveys and provide some suggestions in survey design. The contingent valuation method uses survey questions to elicit individuals' preferences for nonmarket goods. The essential task of a contingent valuation exercise is to design a questionnaire which elicits respondents' preference for the good being valued.;This dissertation includes three essays that contribute to the contingent valuation literature. The contingent valuation method is widely used in estimating the economic value of nonmarket goods. The first essay offers an empirical test of a theoretical result in the contingent valuation literature, which argues that respondents will respond to survey questions truthfully, if they perceive the survey as being "consequential", regardless of the degree of consequentiality. The second essay tests the commitment cost theory suggested by Zhao and Kling (2001, 2004). They argue that a respondent's willingness to pay for a good at a particular point of time depends not only on the intrinsic value of the good, but also on the timing of the decision and the characteristics of the market environment. The third study examines whether three value elicitation formats---the dichotomous choice question, the multinomial choice question, and a modified multinomial choice question suggested by Carson and Groves (2007)---provide comparable welfare estimates