Performance of different approaches in international benefit transfer: Insights from a nine country experiment

Heini Ahtiainen (), Janne Artell, Mikolaj Czajkowski and Jürgen Meyerhoff
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Heini Ahtiainen: Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)

No 2015-28, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Abstract: This paper investigates the performance of different approaches in international benefit transfer using data from identical and simultaneous contingent valuation surveys on marine water quality in nine European countries. The environmental good is shared by the study countries, but the countries differ substantially in their income levels and geography. We test the performance of three approaches: unit value transfer, unit value transfer with income elasticity adjustment, and function transfer. We find that at least in the case of international benefit transfers (when respondents’ mean incomes vary) unit value transfer with income elasticity adjustment performs the best, both in terms of mean absolute transfer errors and minimum tolerance levels for the equivalence of welfare measures. We argue that this approach should become a standard for quick and easy benefit transfer, and can serve as a baseline for comparisons with more complicated function transfers.

Keywords: benefit transfer; contingent valuation; international; transfer errors; water quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q51 Q53 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:war:wpaper:2015-28

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