Contingent Valuation Of Nonmarket Benefits In Project Economic Analysis

This guide explains how to measure people's willingness to pay for goods and services, such as improved air quality, that are not traded in a market. It aims to help improve the assessment of potential investment projects. Accounting for the value of nonmarket benefits and costs is an essential part of project economic analysis. The contingent valuation method (CVM) is a stated preference approach used in many areas of public policy, including water supply and sanitation, health, tourism, and cultural heritage. This book aims to support practitioners who are engaged to prepare and implement CVM studies as part of investment appraisal.

Investment projects are increasingly designed to provide multiple benefits. Some of these benefits are easily quantified through market-valuation methods while others are measured for their nonmarket values. The contingent valuation method (CVM) is one of the most widely used techniques to quantify and value benefits from nonmarket goods and services, such as improvement in air and water quality, and protection of ecosystems. This reference book provides a comprehensive guide to CVM. It aims to help improve future CVM studies and estimation of willingness to pay to inform economic analysis at the Asian Development Bank and beyond.

This is a practical book with clear descriptions of the most commonly used nonmarket methods. The first chapters of the book provide the context and theoretical foundation of nonmarket valuation along with a discussion of data collection procedures. The middle chapters describe the major stated- and revealed-preference valuation methods. For each method, the steps involved in implementation are laid out and carefully explained with supporting references from the published literature. The final chapters of the book examine the relevance of experimentation to economic valuation, the transfer of existing nonmarket values to new settings, and assessments of the reliability and validity of nonmarket values. The book is relevant to individuals in many professions at all career levels. Professionals in government agencies, attorneys involved with natural resource damage assessments, graduate students, and others will appreciate the thorough descriptions of how to design, implement, and analyze a nonmarket valuation study.

Nutrient recycling, habitat for plants and animals, flood control, and water supply are among the many beneficial services provided by aquatic ecosystems. In making decisions about human activities, such as draining a wetland for a housing development, it is essential to consider both the value of the development and the value of the ecosystem services that could be lost. Despite a growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services, their value is often overlooked in environmental decision-making. This report identifies methods for assigning economic value to ecosystem servicesâ€"even intangible onesâ€"and calls for greater collaboration between ecologists and economists in such efforts.

. . . the book provides a wide variety of practical examples of economic assessments of river management projects. . . the book offers policy-makers a nice range of valuation case studies and practical and illustrative guidance on the use of economic valuation results in cost benefit analysis of river management. Marije Schaafsma, Environmental and Resource Economics It is rare to find a book that attempts to integrate physical, biological and social sciences (economics) to address environmental problems, but this book does a great job of it. It is also rare to find a book that addresses both the benefits and the costs of river restoration, and again this book delivers. This collection of case studies provides an informative and practical guide to conducting economic analyses of many different types of river restoration. Scientists interested in quantifying the benefits and costs of river restoration will gain a very quick and thorough education from the case studies presented in this book. John Loomis, Colorado State University, US The book applies benefit cost analysis and a wide array of non-market and distribution economic valuation methods in ecologic context to determine the pay-off and distribution impacts of various infrastructure and water quality improvements to eight river systems in the Great Lakes region of the US. The generally positive results have important implications for public policy and future research. Prime readership is the wide range of academics, NGO and government agency staff and citizen action groups concerned with the management and protection of rivers and other natural resource systems.

Economists and others have long believed that by balancing the costs of such public goods as air quality and wilderness areas against their benefits, informed policy choices can be made. But the problem of putting a dollar value on cleaner air or water and other goods not sold in the marketplace has been a major stumbling block. Mitchell and Carson, for reasons presented in this book, argue that at this time the contingent valuation (CV) method offers the most promising approach for determining public willingness to pay for many public goods---an approach likely to succeed, if used carefully, where other methods may fail. The result of ten years of research by the authors aimed at assessing how surveys might best be used to value public goods validly and reliably, this book makes a major contribution to what constitutes best practice in CV surveys. Mitchell and Carson begin by introducing the contingent valuation method, describing how it works and the nature of the benefits it can be used to measure, comparing it to other methods for measuring benefits, and examining the data-gathering technique on which it is based---survey research. Placing contingent valuation in the larger context of welfare theory, the authors examine how the CV method impels a deeper understanding of willingness-to-pay versus willingness-to-accept compensation measures, the possibility of existence values for public goods, the role of uncertainty in benefit valuation, and the question of whether a consumer goods market or a political goods market (referenda) should be emulated. In developing a CV methodology, the authors deal with issues of broader significance to survey research. Their model of respondent error is relevant to current efforts to frame a theory of response behavior and bias typology will interest those considering the cognitive aspects of answering survey questions. Mitchell and Carson conclude that the contingent valuation method can obtain valid valuation information on public goods, but only if the method is applied in a way that addresses the potential sources of error and bias. They end their book by providing guidelines for CV practitioners, a list of questions that should be asked by any decision maker who wishes to use the findings of a CV study, and suggestions for new applications of contingent valuation. Additional features include a comprehensive bibliography of the CV literature and an appendix summarizing more than 100 CV studies.

Master's Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Economics - Other, grade: 1,0, University of Manchester (School of Environment and Development), course: International Development, language: English, abstract: In face of scarce resources and growing population, sustainability became the term used to consider the needs of future generations in the decision making process referring projects. The World Bank, as one of the major players in the field of development research and practice, aggregates information from different areas in the project appraisal document (PAD) in order to allow for sustainability. One of the approaches used to measure environmental impacts of a project is economic valuation of environmental goods and services. The results of this approach flow into the cost benefit analysis, which is part of the economic analysis. Although substantial critique has been expressed over the last decades, environmental valuation and costbenefit analysis are considered sensible tools in the context of decision making over project funding. This is especially the case because of tremendous development of these techniques over the last decades. This study shows that the World Bank, as one of the leading institutions in the world, treats this topic from two different perspectives. First, there is the theoretical side. Here the World Bank sets out ideal procedures, under their rules and guidelines, and publishes papers and reports with respect to further development of underlying methods. The aim here is to allow for measurement of total social welfare, or in other words measurement of the complete picture of environmental costs and benefits associated with a project. Second there is the practical side, were the World Bank adjusts environmental valuation techniques in order to understand the most important costs and benefits associated with a project, where measurement of the total social welfare of a project is not the target. In this case the aim is to collect sufficient information to allow making a funding decision, rather than understanding the complete picture. This impression is caused by findings from the case study which showed that during project appraisal obvious environmental benefits have not been measured.