Spatial Heterogeneity in Stated Preference Valuation: Status, Challenges and Road Ahead

Jeremy De Valck and John Rolfe

International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, 2018, vol. 11, issue 4, 355-422

Abstract: This paper reviews the progress made over the past few years in evaluating and controlling for spatial heterogeneity in stated preference valuation, focussing on applications to environmental valuation. Spatial heterogeneity can strongly impact value estimates, so failure to account for it can compromise their validity and reliability. Incorporating spatial factors into valuation studies not only helps to control for some potential biases, but also produces more precise evaluation of amenities that have mixed use and non-use values. For these reasons and considering the ever-growing need for non-market valuation studies, spatial heterogeneity deserves more attention in the stated preference valuation literature. In this review we discuss the current state-of-knowledge and identify some of the main issues that have been raised in the literature in relation to spatial heterogeneity in stated preference valuation, including distance-decay, substitution, embedding effects and scale factors. We present several techniques that have been used so far, mostly originating from spatial econometrics and spatial statistics, to control for spatial heterogeneity. Some of the ongoing challenges that require further attention are also highlighted. We conclude by suggesting potential directions for future research in light of recent progress made in related disciplines and the evolution of modern technologies.

Keywords: Environmental; non-market valuation; preference heterogeneity; GIS; spatial statistics; ecosystem services (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C31 Q20 Q57 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/101.00000097 (application/xml)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:now:jirere:101.00000097

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().