State of the Art of Hedonic Pricing

Hedonic pricing methods have become a staple in the environmental economist’s toolkit for conducting nonmarket valuation. The hedonic pricing method (HPM) is a revealed preference approach used to indirectly infer the value buyers and sellers place on characteristics of a differentiated product. Environmental applications of the HPM are typically focused on housing and labor markets, where the characteristics of interest are local environmental commodities and health risks. Despite the fact that there have been thousands of hedonic pricing studies published, applications of the methodology still often grapple with issues of omitted variable bias, measurement error, sample selection, choice of functional form, effect heterogeneity, and the recovery of policy-relevant welfare estimates. Advances in empirical methodologies, increased quality and quantity of data, and efforts to link empirical results to economic theory will surely further the use of the HPM as an important nonmarket valuation tool.

Economic valuation of recreational attributes using a choice experiment approach: An application to the Galapagos Islands

Despite the increasing number of visitors to Galapagos National Park, the tourism industry pays little attention to the distinct preferences of tourists toward park attributes, including both its natural resources and managerial emphasis. To “monetize” the benefits of these attributes requires utilizing nonmarket valuation techniques. Using a stated preference questionnaire, we estimated the economic value of the park’s recreational attributes. The following five attributes were selected: endangered species, prevalence of garbage, site infrastructure, air quality, and entrance fees. The results of this study demonstrate that tourists place the highest willingness to pay values on increased protection of animal species (US$26.9) and garbage reduction (US$111.2). These results highlight the economic contributions for park management, with a potential for value improvement of US$38.1 per tourist if the park’s combined attributes are upgraded from the present condition to the optimum condition.

Bark Beetle Epidemics, Life Satisfaction, and Economic Well-Being

Evidence of increased biotic disturbances in forests due to climate change is accumulating, necessitating the development of new approaches for understanding the impacts of natural disturbances on human well-being. The recent Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) outbreak in the western United States, which was historically unprecedented in scale, provides an opportunity for testing the adequacy of the life satisfaction approach (LSA) to estimate the impact of large-scale forest mortality on subjective well-being. Prior research in this region used the hedonic method (HM) to estimate the economic impacts of the MPB outbreak, and results are used here to evaluate the reasonableness of economic estimates based upon the LSA. While economic estimates based upon the LSA model do not appear to be unreasonable, several limitations in using the LSA for nonmarket valuations are discussed. New avenues for research that link the LSA with stated preference methods are discussed that appear likely to address major concerns with standard LSA models as used in nonmarket valuation.

Deliberative Monetary Valuation

While economic values of nonmarket ecosystem goods and services are in high demand to inform decision-making processes, economic valuation has also attracted significant criticism. Particularly, its implicit rationality assumptions and value monism gave rise to alternative approaches to economic nonmarket valuation. Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) originated in the early 2000s and gained particular prominence after 2010, especially in the context of the United Kingdom National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA). It constitutes a major methodological development to overcome the limitations of conventional nonmarket valuation methods by incorporating deliberative group elements (information provision, discussion, time to reflect in a group setting) in the valuation process. DMV approaches range from those that focus on facilitating individual preference formation for complex and unfamiliar environmental changes and stay close to neoclassical economic theory to those that try to go beyond methodological individualism and monetary valuation to include a plurality of different values. The theoretical foundation of DMV comprises a mix of economic welfare theory, on the one hand, and various strands of deliberative democratic theory and discourse ethics, on the other. DMV formats are mostly inspired by deliberative institutions such as citizens’ juries and combine those with stated preference methods such as choice experiments. While the diversity of approaches within this field is large, it has been demonstrated that deliberation can lead to more well-informed and stable preferences as well as facilitate the inclusion of considerations going beyond self-interest. Future research challenges surrounding DMV include the exploration of intergroup power relations and group dynamics as well as the theoretical status and the validity of DMV results.

The Personal Journey of a Resource Economist

This perspective article begins with speculation about my early interest in conservation at age six and traces my personal development until I became an assistant professor. My contribution to the beginning and development of nonmarket valuation, including an early publication on the stated preference method, is included. All but one of the discussed articles was about a nonmarket context. I also explore my research on endangered species in general and the spotted owl and black rhinoceros in particular. The arc of interest represented in my publications embraces biodiversity. For example, one article covers a metapopulation model, whereas others discuss the bio-economics of antibiotics and an early treatment of uncertainty in a public utility setting. My reconsideration of the analytical and empirical resource scarcity literature in the field is distinctive, while the necessity to work in an interdisciplinary setting is shown as transparent.