The Measurement Of Environmental And Resource Values

Non-market valuation is becoming increasingly accepted as an evaluative tool of economics related to environmental and resource protection. Freeman (economics, Bowdoin College) presents an overview of the literature, introducing the principal methods and techniques of resource valuation. Chapters cover the measurement of welfare changes, revealed and stated preference models, nonuse models, aggregation of values across time, environmental quality as factor input, longevity and health valuation, property value models, hedonic wage models, and recreational uses of natural resource systems. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

The first edition of this important work was the winner of the 2002 Publication of Enduring Quality award by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. The continuing premise for the book is that estimates of the economic values of environmental and natural resource services are essential for effective policy-making. As previous editions, the third edition, which includes two additional co-authors, presents a comprehensive treatment of the theory and methods involved in estimating environmental benefits. Researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners will welcome the work as an up-to-date reference on recent developments. Students will gain a better understanding of the contribution that economics as a discipline can make to decisions concerning pollution control and human health, recreation, environmental amenities, and other critical issues concerning the way we use and interact with environmental and natural resource systems. To reflect recent progress in both the theory and practice of non-market valuation, the third edition includes more details on empirical approaches to measurement, expanded discussion of the reasons for divergence between "willingness to pay" and "willingness to accept compensation," and increased coverage of econometric issues encountered in estimation. In keeping with its cutting edge orientation, it also includes more discussion of survey design, equilibrium sorting models, and the implications of behavioral economics for welfare measurements and benefit cost analysis.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Non-market valuation has become a broadly accepted and widely practiced means of measuring the economic values of the environment and natural resources. In this book, the authors provide a guide to the statistical and econometric practices that economists employ in estimating non-market values. The authors develop the econometric models that underlie the basic methods: contingent valuation, travel cost models, random utility models and hedonic models. They analyze the measurement of non-market values as a procedure with two steps: the estimation of parameters of demand and preference functions and the calculation of benefits from the estimated models. Each of the models is carefully developed from the preference function to the behavioral or response function that researchers observe. The models are then illustrated with datasets that characterize the kinds of data researchers typically deal with. The real world data and clarity of writing in this book will appeal to environmental economists, students, researchers and practitioners in multilateral banks and government agencies.

During the last decades, environmental economics as a science has been very successful in improving our understanding of environment-economy interdepen dence. Using conventional economic methodology, environmental aspects have been explicitly incorporated into economic models making use of the concept of externality. This concept was already familiar to economists long before evidence of severe environmental deterioration found its way into the headlines and peo ple's awareness. But before that time, external effects were not considered as being empirically very relevant, they seemed to be -like the example of the bees and the fruit trees - somewhat bucolic in nature. All that changed dramatically when it was no longer possible (or easy) to ignore the large-scale environmental disruption with its negative feedback on consumers and producers caused by growing pollution and excessive use of environmental resources. In diagnosing the discrepancy between private and social cost as the cause of the problem, the externality paradigm proved very useful. The correct diagnosis implies the straightforward cure to internalise all external cost, namely the damage cost of pollution. But it is one thing to identify the qualitative nature of the problem at an abstract conceptual level and quite another thing to place specific money values on pollution damage and society's valuation of the environment, respectively, in the context of specific pollution (control) problems. Very often it is controversial not only how inefficient the no-policy situation is but also what exactly the net benefit of any public action of reducing pollution is.

This volume offers a snapshot of the research that is ongoing in the area of value transfer. It provides relevant input for increasing the quality of cost-benefit analyses of projects with environmental and health impacts. The volume includes papers by some of the most influential authors in the area and covers the latest developments in the field.

This book provides a comprehensive review of environmental benefit transfer methods, issues and challenges, covering topics relevant to researchers and practitioners. Early chapters provide accessible introductory materials suitable for non-economists. These chapters also detail how benefit transfer is used within the policy process. Later chapters cover more advanced topics suited to valuation researchers, graduate students and those with similar knowledge of economic and statistical theory and methods. This book provides the most complete coverage of environmental benefit transfer methods available in a single location. The book targets a wide audience, including undergraduate and graduate students, practitioners in economics and other disciplines looking for a one-stop handbook covering benefit transfer topics and those who wish to apply or evaluate benefit transfer methods. It is designed for those both with and without training in economics