scholarly journals Inadequate Standards in the Valuation of Public Goods and Ecosystem Services: Why Economists, Environmental Scientists and Policymakers Should Care

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 393
Author(s):  
Felix Schläpfer
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Valuation ◽  
Reporting Standards ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Validity Tests

Surveys of stated willingness to pay (WTP) are increasingly used to assess the value of public goods and ecosystem services. However, the currently dominant survey protocols and practices are inadequate. This is most evident from robust findings that the valuations are heavily influenced by the response options or response scales used in the valuation questions. The widely accepted survey guidelines do not require the validity tests and reporting standards that would be needed to make the uncertainty of the results transparent. The increasing use of inadequate survey results by policymakers threatens to undermine trust in environmental valuation, environmental policies, and political institutions. The objective of this paper is to explain the relevant issues and the available alternatives in survey-based valuation to a wider audience of non-specialized economists, environmental scientists, and policymakers.

Distortions in willingness-to-pay for public goods induced by endemic distrust in institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 100271
Author(s):  
Habtamu Tilahun Kassahun ◽  
Joffre Swait ◽  
Jette Bredahl Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Public Goods

scholarly journals Willingness to pay for unfamiliar public goods: Preserving cold-water coral in Norway

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 53-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margrethe Aanesen ◽  
Claire Armstrong ◽  
Mikołaj Czajkowski ◽  
Jannike Falk-Petersen ◽  
Nick Hanley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Cold Water ◽  
Water Coral

Assessing 30 Years of Neoliberal Environmental Management in Chile

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javiera Barandiarán
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Impact Assessments ◽  
Water Ecosystem ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Mutual Accountability

Neoliberal environmental policies operate through markets, including for carbon, water, ecosystem services, or—as in contemporary Chile—for environmental scientific knowledge. Chile illustrates how markets for science operate, such as for monitoring data or environmental impact assessments, and their negative impacts on public trust in science and on the state’s regulatory efforts. In a society governed by a market for science, environmental scientists cannot escape the suspicion that conflicts of interest compromise their independence and the credibility of their work. Chile’s neoliberal 1980 Constitution sustains this market for knowledge but will be reformed following national demonstrations in 2019. The health of Chile’s environment depends on a new constitution that democratizes both democracy and science. Rights of nature doctrines, as in Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution, can provide the constitutional foundation for strong mutual accountability between science, the state, society, and nature.

Novel approaches to evaluate sustainability of pasture-based livestock systems

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-190
Author(s):  
A. Bernués
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Market Price ◽  
Farming Systems ◽  
Agricultural Landscapes ◽  
Livestock Farming ◽  
Livestock Farming Systems ◽  
Livestock Systems

Pasture-based livestock systems, often located in High Value Nature farmland areas, hold the greatest potential to deliver public goods across European agricultural systems. They play an important role in preserving agricultural landscapes, farmland biodiversity, cultural heritage, and in sustaining rural development. However, many of these functions are ignored in evaluation frameworks because public goods do not have market price and are often ignored in policy design, so farmers do not get the appropriate incentives to provide them. Different conceptual frameworks can be utilized to evaluate the multiple functions or services of these systems: Multifunctional Agriculture, Ecosystem Services, and Total Economic Value. We analyze the common characteristics of these concepts (e.g. they place human benefits and societal demands at the core of their definitions), their specificities (e.g. use of different units of analysis and spatial-temporal scales), and how they can be embedded in the wider concept of sustainability. Finally, we illustrate how the different concepts can be combined to evaluate pasture-based livestock farming systems from a socio-cultural and economic perspective. The public goods (ecosystem services) provided by representative case studies in Mediterranean and Nordic regions are quantified (also in monetary terms) under different environmental/policy scenarios. The results show that there is a clear underestimation of the socio-cultural and economic values of ecosystem services provided by these farming systems. They also show that the social welfare loss linked to further abandonment of livestock farming, and the associated environmental degradation, is very large. From a societal perspective, it is necessary to jointly measure the biophysical, socio-cultural and monetary values of ecosystem services (market and nonmarket) in order to promote the sustainability of pasture-based livestock systems.

scholarly journals Economic valuation of the Emas waterfall, Mogi-Guaçu River, SP, Brazil

2011 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1287-1302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janice Peixer ◽  
Henrique C. Giacomini ◽  
Miguel Petrere Jr
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Socioeconomic Factors ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Economic Valuation ◽  
Environmental Valuation ◽  
Sport Fishing ◽  
The Family ◽  
Logistic Regressions

The Emas waterfall in Mogi-Guaçu River is regionally recognized as an important fishing spot and touristic place. The first reports of the professional and sport fishing there date back from the 30's, which is the same period when the tourism took place. The present paper provides an environmental valuation of this place and an assessment of the differences among the major groups of people using the area. During 2006 we interviewed 33 professional fishers, 107 sport fishers, 45 tourists and 103 excursionists in order to estimate the Willingness to Pay (WTP) for each category and to analyze the influence of socioeconomic factors by means of logistic regressions and ANCOVAs. The WTP of professional fisher was significantly influenced by age and education, and the WTP for the sport fishers was influenced by the family income. The variables that influenced the tourists' and excursionists' WTP were sex and education. The total annual aggregated value to maintain the waterfall in the current conditions was estimated in US$ 11.432.128, and US$ 55.424.283 to restore it.

Demand and supply of agricultural ES: towards benefit-based policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 1223-1249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Tienhaara ◽  
Emmi Haltia ◽  
Eija Pouta ◽  
Kyösti Arovuori ◽  
Ioanna Grammatikopoulou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Discrete Choice ◽  
Choice Experiment ◽  
Willingness To Accept ◽  
Demand And Supply ◽  
Experiment Method ◽  
Almost All

Abstract In order to integrate ecosystem services (ES) in designing agri-environmental policy, we investigated both the demand for, and supply of, ES from agricultural environments in Finland. Using the discrete choice experiment method, we measured citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) for four different ES and analysed farmers’ compensation request (willingness to accept [WTA]) for producing these services. Biodiversity and water quality gathered the highest WTA of farmers, but also the highest WTP of citizens. Overall, the average WTA exceeded the WTP for almost all attributes and levels, but 20–27 per cent of farmers were willing to produce the ES with the compensation lower than citizens’ WTP.

scholarly journals Heterogeneity in Ecosystem Service Values: Linking Public Perceptions and Environmental Policies

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 1217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Pan ◽  
Yue Che ◽  
Stuart Marshall ◽  
Lorraine Maltby
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Ecosystem Service ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Rural Regions ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Service ◽  
The City

One way of linking research and environmental policies is to increase public participation and identify ecosystem services valued by society, but the reasons influencing ecosystem values can vary. Our study investigates the reasons influencing ecosystem service values at the third largest freshwater lake in China, Lake Tai (Taihu). We interviewed 257 rural and 257 urban respondents in four cities and their respective rural regions surrounding the lake. Respondents were more willing to pay to protect a provisioning ecosystem service than a cultural ecosystem service, and those emotionally attached to the lake may value it more highly. There is also spatial heterogeneity in respondents’ ecosystem values. Rural communities ranked directly used ecosystem services higher than urban communities. The city that respondents lived in also significantly affected the amount they were willing to pay for ecosystem services. Identifying potential reasons behind ecosystem service values can provide insights into linking public perception and policy making, helping to form environmental policies that reflect societal values.

A Note on the Measurement of Bias in Stated Willingness to Pay for Public Goods

Kyklos ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Schlapfer ◽  
Robert T. Deacon ◽  
Nick Hanley
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Public Goods
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