Randall S. Rosenberger

Using meta‐analysis for benefit transfer: In‐sample convergent validity tests of an outdoor recreation database

The application of metaregression analysis models for the purpose of benefit transfer is investigated using in-sample convergent validity tests on average value transfers. The database on which the metaregression analysis models are developed is composed of empirical outdoor recreation use value studies conducted from 1967 through 1998. Results of the convergent validity tests suggest that the national model is slightly more robust to changes in application than the Census Region models. The results suggest that the application of meta-analysis for benefit transfers is promising considering limitations imposed by inconsistent data reporting of original studies.

METHODS, TRENDS AND CONTROVERSIES IN CONTEMPORARY BENEFIT TRANSFER

Benefit transfer uses research results from pre-existing primary research to predict welfare estimates for other sites of policy significance for which primary valuation estimates are unavailable. Despite the sizable literature and the ubiquity of benefit transfer in policy analysis, the method remains subject to controversy. There is also a divergence between transfer practices recommended by the scholarly literature and those commonly applied within policy analysis. The size, complexity and relative disorganization of the literature may represent an obstacle to the use of updated methods by practitioners. Recognizing the importance of benefit transfer for policymaking and the breadth of associated scholarly work, this paper reviews and synthesizes the benefit transfer literature. It highlights methods, trends and controversies in contemporary research, identifies issues and challenges facing benefit transfer practitioners and summarizes research contributions. Several areas of future research on benefit transfers naturally emerge. Copyright

Meta-Analysis Of Economics Research Reporting Guidelines

Meta‐regression analysis (MRA) can provide objective and comprehensive summaries of economics research. Their use has grown rapidly over the last few decades. To improve transparency and to raise the quality of MRA, the meta‐analysis of economics research‐network (MAER‐Net) has created the below reporting guidelines. Future meta‐analyses in economics will be expected to follow these guidelines or give valid reasons why a meta‐analysis must deviate from them.

Selection Effects in Meta-Analysis and Benefit Transfer: Avoiding Unintended Consequences

Selection effects include seemingly independent influences on, and choices in, conducting and reporting primary research that may bias a stock of knowledge. Such effects may arise from sociopolitical influences (research priority selection), researcher choices (methodology selection), peer review influences (publication selection), and meta-analyst choices (metadata sample selection). This paper discusses the impact, detection, and amelioration of selection effects within benefit transfer. Also discussed is evidence of selection effects in the literature and their implications for primary research. Evidence suggests that metaregression analysis may be the best tool for detecting and generating corrective measures for selection biases within benefit transfers. (JEL C51, Q51)

Benefit transfer of environmental and resource values a guide for researchers and practitioners

Section 1: Introduction and Policy Perspectives.- Introduction: Benefit Transfer of Environmental and Resource Values.- Introduction to Benefit Transfer Methods.- The Use of Benefit Transfer in the United States.- The Use and Development of Benefit Transfer in Europe.- Applied Benefit Transfer: An Australian and New Zealand Policy Perspective.- Benefit Transfer for Water Quality Regulatory Rulemaking in the United States.- Section 2: Methods and Applications.- Benefit Transfers with the Contingent Valuation Method.- Applying Benefit Transfer with Limited Data: Unit Value Transfers in Practice.- Benefit Transfer Combining Revealed and Stated Preference Data.- Benefit Transfers: Insights from Choice Experiments.- Frontiers in Modeling Discrete Choice Experiments: A Benefit Transfer Perspective.- Benefit Transfer for Ecosystem Service Valuation: An Introduction to Theory.- Ecosystem Services Assessment and Benefit Transfer.-Benefit Transfer Validity and Reliability.- Section 3: Meta-Analysis.- Meta-analysis: Statistical Methods.- Meta-analysis: Rationale, Issues and Applications.- Meta-analysis: Econometric Advances and New Perspectives toward Data Synthesis and Robustness.- Section 4: Spatial and Geographical Considerations.- Spatial and Geographical Aspects of Benefit Transfer.- Reliability of Meta-analytic Benefit Transfers of International Value of Statistical Life Estimates: Tests and Illustrations.- GIS-Based Mapping of Ecosystem Services: The Case of Coral Reefs.- Section 5. Bayesian Methods.- A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach to the Transfer of Subjective Well-Being Values of Air Quality.- Optimal Scope and Bayesian Model Search in Benefit Transfer.- Structural Benefits Transfer using Bayesian Econometrics.- Section 6. Status and Prospects.-Benefit Transfer: The Present State and Future Prospects.

Public preferences regarding the goals of farmland preservation programs: comment.

In a recent article in this journal, Kline and Wichelns (1996) (hereafter KW) argued that public (government) farmland preservation programs would be more efficient if broadened to include not only agricultural productive and lifestyle criteria, but also open space criteria as preservation objectives. While the public may prefer the open space benefits more than the agrarian benefits, much of the enabling legislation of public preservation programs relegate open space objectives as secondary to the agrarian ones. Therefore, by broadening the legislative scope of these public programs to include the multiple objectives of agricultural productive, lifestyle, aesthetics, environment, and open space, targeted land for preservation would be more efficient (and effective) in meeting the publics multiple objectives. Often, the nonagrarian objectives are highlighted by program proponents to gain public support. As evidence on the ranking of land preservation preferences, KW collected qualitative data from Rhode Island residents on reasons

Introduction to Benefit Transfer Methods

This chapter provides an introductory overview of benefit transfer methods. It begins with a discussion of the different types of benefit transfer (such as unit value transfer and benefit function transfer) , including a review of these different approaches and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each. This is followed by a summary of foundations in welfare economics and valuation. Included in this methodological introduction are a discussion of stated and revealed preference valuation and how the results from each may be used for benefit transfer. Following this introductory material are discussions of the theoretical and informational requirements for benefit transfer, the steps required to implement a benefit transfer, the challenges of scaling, and sources of data. The chapter concludes with brief discussions of transfer validity and reliability, advanced techniques for benefit transfer, and common problems and challenges.

Protest Adjustments in the Valuation of Watershed Restoration Using Payment Card Data

When using a willingness-to-pay (WTP) format in contingent valuation (CV) to value watershed restoration, respondents may protest by questioning why they should pay to clean up a pollution problem that someone else created. Using a sample selection interval data model based on Bhat (1994) and Brox, Kumar, and Stollery (2003), we found that the decision to protest and WTP values were correlated. Protest sample selection bias resulted in a 300 percent overestimate of mean WTP per respondent. Using different ad hoc treatments of protesters, protest bias resulted in moderate effects (−10 percent to +14 percent) after controlling for sample selection bias.

Private Provision of a Public Good: Willingness to Pay for Privately Stocked Trout

Governments may fail to adequately supply public goods, due, in part, to declining budgets and entrenched methods of provision. This undersupply provides opportunities for private organizations to supplement governmental efforts in the provision of goods with positive externalities. This study examines a case where a local, nongovernmental organization conducts a fish stocking program on a restored public waterway in West Virginia. Results show that anglers are generally supportive of the program. Estimated average willingness to pay for fish stocking is about

Cross-Context Benefit Transfer: A Bayesian Search for Information Pools

29 per angler per year, based on results from a grouped data Tobit model. Annual stated willingness to pay is affected by distance to the site, knowledge of the program, demographics, and fishing preferences, each of which has implications for promoting and marketing the trout stocking program. Knowledge of the program helps mitigate the distance decay of spillover benefits.