Environmental and Resource Economics

, Volume 69, Issue 3, pp 449–466 | Cite as

Benefits Transfer: Current Practice and Prospects

Article

Abstract

This paper introduces a special issue devoted to the benefits transfer methods used as part of benefit costs analysis for policy analysis. Benefits transfer methods, as they are applied for environmental policy analyses, use economic concepts together with existing empirical estimates to predict the incremental benefits from a change in some feature of an environmental resource. After giving two examples of the decisions that analysts confront in performing these analyses, I discuss the interconnections between the papers in this issue and the research challenges that emerged from discussions of them.

Keywords

Benefit cost analysis Regulatory impact analysis Benefit transfer 

References

  1. Bishop RC, Boyle KJ, Carson RT, Chapman D, Hanemann WM, Kanninen B, Kopp RJ, Krosnick JA, List J, Meade N, Paterson R, Presser S, Kerry SV, Tourangeau R, Welsh M, Wooldridge JM, DeBell M, Donovan C, Konopka M, Scherer N (2017) Putting a value on injuries to natural assets: the BP oil spill. Science 356(6335):253–254CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Blow L, Blundell R (2017) A nonparametric revealed preference approach to measuring the value of environmental quality. Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0210-z
  3. Boyle KJ, Kotchen MJ, Kerry Smith V (2017) Deciphering dueling analyses of clean water regulations. Science 358(6359):49–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Boyle KJ, Wooldridge JM (2017) Understanding error structures and exploiting panel data in meta-analytic benefit transfers. Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0211-y
  5. Costanza R, d’Arge R, de Groot R, Farber S, Grasso M, Hannon B, Limburg K, Naeem S, O’Neill RV, Paruelo J, Raskin RG, Sutton P, van den Belt M (1997) The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387(May):253–260CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Dudley S et al (2017) Consumer’s guide to regulatory impact analyses: ten tips for being an informed policymaker. J Benef Cost Anal 8:1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Hausman JA (1981) Exact consumer surplus and deadweight loss. Am Econ Rev 17:662–676Google Scholar
  8. Kling CL, Phaneuf DJ (2017) How are scope and adding up relevant for benefits transfer? Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0208-6
  9. Kopp RJ, Smith VK (1989) Benefit estimation goes to court: the case of natural resource damage assessments. J Policy Anal Manag 8:593–612CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Kuminoff NV (2017) Can understanding spatial equilibria enhance benefit transfers for environmental policy evaluation? Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0214-8
  11. Larson DM (1992) Further results on willingness to pay for nonmarket goods. J Environ Econ Manag 23:101–122CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. McConnell KE, Siikamäki JV (2017) Seeking external evidence to assess benefit transfers for environmental policy. Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0212-x
  13. Muller NZ, Mendelsohn RO (2007) Measuring the damages due to air pollution in the United States. J Environ Econ Manag 54:1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. Muller NZ (2011) Linking policy to statistical uncertainty in air pollution damages. BE J Econ Anal Policy 11:32Google Scholar
  15. Newbold SC, Simpson D, Massey M, Heberling MT, Wheeler W, Corona J, Hewitt J (2017a) Benefit transfer challenges: perspectives from U.S. practitioners. Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0207-7
  16. Newbold SC, Walsh P, Massey DM, Hewitt J (2017b) Using structural restrictions to achieve theoretical consistency in benefit transfers. Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0209-5
  17. Smith VK, Van Houtven G, Pattanayak SK (2002) Benefit transfer via preference calibration: ‘prudential algebra’ for policy. Land Econ 78(1):132–152CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. Turner MA (2017) Benefit-transfer and spatial equilibrium. Environ Resour Econ.  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-017-0213-9
  19. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2017) SAB review of EPA’s proposed methodology for updating mortality risk valuation estimates for policy analysis. Letter to E. Scott Pruitt, February 23Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Arizona State UniversityTempeUSA

Personalised recommendations