The next decision node to consider, for both public and private actors, is whether valuation should be applied to outcomes that are not traded in markets. These include high environmental quality, moral contentment, and good health. To establish appropriate values - the relative value of these goods to those goods that are traded on markets - there are a number of methods to estimate value. These include hedonic pricing, contingent valuation, and the travel cost method (see Patt 2010). An example of the hedonic pricing method would be examine the extent to which prices of housing with a good view of a natural landscape differ from similar located houses without the view; from this is, it is possible to impute a value for the landscape quality. An example of contingent valuation would be to ask people how much they would be willing to pay to preserve a wetland; from this it is possible to impute a value to the wetlands' existence. An example of the travel cost method would be to survey visitors to a national park about where they came from and how much they are willing to pay for visiting the park and the calculating the value of the park as the consumer surplus (Patt 2010).

If non-market outcomes are of interest, public actors may apply any of these methods (see the Toolbox section on Valuation). For private actors, non-market outcomes can be ranked according to their own preferences; no elicitation of preferences is necessary.