How Can We Reduce the Errors from Benefits Transfer? An Investigation Using the Choice Experiment Method

Abstract

Policymakers are increasingly making use of benefits transfer in benefit-cost assessments of environmental policy. An important question is how big the resultant errors are, and how sensitive errors are to how the transfer is conducted. We employ a choice experiment focusing on landscape attributes to investigate the sensitivity of transfer error to procedures. The main findings are that errors depend on the choice of study site at which original valuations are sought, on whether a single site or pooled model is used; and that adding more information by pooling sites does not always seem to be economically desirable. (JEL Q51)