(gentle music)
-: Third, that's where Darth Vader ranks among the top
100 greatest American movie villains of all time.
But did you know that James Earl Jones,
the actor who gave Darth Vader his menacing voice
was born in the Mississippi Delta?
In fact Jones' birth house still stands today
but just barely 'cause as like other notable delta
landmarks and the Death Star you see here on the left
it has deteriorated noticeably.
But what if we restore Jones' birth house?
Would Mississippians values that restoration?
To answer this question we apply a method commonly
used in economics called contingent valuation.
The process works like this.
First you send out a survey to a sample of the population
and ask them if they're willing to pay to see some
hypothetical improvement occur.
And that hypothetical improvement in this case would be
restoring James Earl Jones' birth house.
And some are gonna say yes,
others are gonna be a little bit more Yoda-ish
and say no.
And then others are gonna fall into the
I don't know category.
But the idea is that the maximum amount a person is
willing to pay for the restoration is how much
they value it.
So for example if we asked someone who's a little more
on the Darth Vader side if they're willing to pay
five dollars and they say yes then we would know that they
value the restoration at least that much.
In our case we surveyed 600 adult Mississippians
and asked them if they'd be willing to pay to see
James Earl Jones' birth house restored
and repurposed as a James Earl Jones museum.
Ultimately we find that Mississippians value the restoration
at about 78 dollars per person.
Which when multiplied by the total adult population of the
state of Mississippi equates to a total value of
about 177 million dollars.
And this is just the value that Mississippians
place on knowing that the restoration occurred,
not necessarily because they plan to visit.
But it's also a possibility that James Earl Jones fans
and Star Wars fans from across the country
and around the world would come to the delta to visit the
place where Jones was born.
And that undoubtedly have a positive impact
on the local economy.
All of this is to say that Mississippians would benefit
from restoring James Earl Jones' birth house
and that Darth Vader would undoubtedly find the
current lack of restoration disturbing.
(gentle music)