Warm glow and embedding in contingent valuation

This paper reports the results from a contingent valuation study designed to investigate the influence of warm glow in willingness-to-pay responses. Interindividual differences in warm glow motivation are measured through a factor analysis, performed on a list of attitudinal items. The reported willingness to pay measures fail to pass the scope test. Both socioeconomic variables and motivational factor scores are significant in the explanation of the individual WTP measures. We compute dry WTP measures by taking out the effect of the warm glow motivation. These dry measures satisfy both the scope test and Hausman's adding-up property and could therefore be interpreted as reflecting true economic preferences

Modeling the Links between Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing in the Context of Climate Change: Results from an Econometric Analysis on the European Forest Ecosystems

25 p.The paper conducts an empirical investigation on the complex relationship between biodiversity and the values of ecosystem goods and services that are supported by biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, aiming to produce an econometric quantification of the magnitudes involved. Furthermore, we operate this study at a in the context of global climate change, which is considered one of the major drivers today that alter the pattern of biodiversity distribution, affect the ecosystem functioning and change the flows of ecosystem goods and services to be provided by a healthy ecosystem. In the paper, we first built a composite biodiversity indicator on the concept of Natural Capital Index so as to integrate information regarding the quantitative and qualitative changes of ecosystems driven by warming climate conditions. Furthermore, the composite indicator is integrated into the econometric specification so as to capture the marginal impacts of changes in biodiversity on the value of ecosystem goods and services due to climate change. The econometric problem is solved in a structural simultaneous system using three-stage-least-squares (3SLS) to analyze climate change impacts on forest ecosystems and the respective ecosystem service values across 17 European countries

Policy instruments for creating markets for biodiversity: Certification and ecolabing

This paper provides an economic evaluation of certification and ecolabeling as an important policy instrument for creating markets for biodiversity. In the paper we conclude that the success of a policy instrument for creating markets for biodiversity depends on the nature crucial factors, including the ability of the policy instrument to deal with (a) the public good nature of most of the nonmarket biodiversity benefits; (b) the asymmetric informational characteristics related to the biodiversity (and environmental friendly) market supply and demand mechanisms; (c) the impact of certification practices in the producer's costs, and (d) the cross price elasticity between regular and market certified products. Indeed, in some cases certification and ecolabeling policy instruments alone are not sufficient to guarantee a successful creation of markets for biodiversity. Finally, the certification schemes need to be sufficiently flexible to allow mutual recognition among the countries involved, as well as to meet the demand of weak sensitive markets. By mutual understanding, and learning with the past experiences, certification and ecolabeling will positively contribute to the creation of markets for biodiversity and thus expected to assist to the development of an effective and broadly accepted sustainable management of such a scarce natural resource

The Economic Impacts of Biodiversity Policy for Improving the Climate Regulating Services Provided by EU Natura 2000 Habitats

22 p.We adopted the state-of-the-art methodologies to quantify the total carbon stocked by Natura 2000 habitats as well as to project the future changes of carbon stocks influenced by alternative policy options for the management of Natura 2000 habitats by 2020. Our results show that the N2K network currently stores around 9.6 billion tonnes of Carbon, equivalent to 35 billion tonnes of CO2, which is estimated to be worth between €607 billion and €1,130 billion (stock value in 2010), depending on the price attached to a ton of carbon. Of the different ecosystems the forest habitats contain the highest carbon value in the network, ranging between €318 and €610 billion in 2010. Furthermore, our results also show that in the future these carbon values can be increased. A policy scenario (Policy ON), where full Protected Area coverage (terrestrial PAs + fuller MPAs) with a move to full favourable conservation status is estimated to generate a gain of at least a total of 1.71-2.86% by 2020 compared to a policy inaction scenario (Policy OFF), where no additional action is taken to conserve the current Natura 2000 sites over the next decade

Marine ecosystem services: Linking indicators to their classification

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. There is a multitude of ecosystem service classifications available within the literature, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. Elements of them have been used to tailor a generic ecosystem service classification for the marine environment and then for a case study site within the North Sea: the Dogger Bank. Indicators for each of the ecosystem services, deemed relevant to the case study site, were identified. Each indicator was then assessed against a set of agreed criteria to ensure its relevance and applicability to environmental management. This paper identifies the need to distinguish between indicators of ecosystem services that are entirely ecological in nature (and largely reveal the potential of an ecosystem to provide ecosystem services), indicators for the ecological processes contributing to the delivery of these services, and indicators of benefits that reveal the realized human use or enjoyment of an ecosystem service. It highlights some of the difficulties faced in selecting meaningful indicators, such as problems of specificity, spatial disconnect and the considerable uncertainty about marine species, habitats and the processes, functions and services they contribute to

Language diversity in urban landscapes: An econometric study

This multidisciplinary study adopts econometric analysis for investigating how different characteristics determine the choice of the language used in the signs of a shopping street. We work with a dataset containing about 200 observations collected in the main shopping streets of the cities of Donostia (Spain) and Ljouwert (The Netherlands). The results corroborate the important assumption that multilingualism and the choice of the language (even in a street sign) is an individual and a social preference. Therefore, understanding individuals' linguistic preference structures is preliminary to the target and design of proper linguistic and social policies

Economic Assessment of Forest Ecosystem Services Losses: Cost of Policy Inaction

52 p.This paper presents a bottom-up methodological framework for estimating some of the key ecosystem services provided by forests biomes worldwide. We consider the provision of wood and non-wood forest products, recreation and passive use, and forests’ contribution to climate regulation in terms of carbon sequestration capacity. The valuation framework derives per hectare estimates by applying meta-analysis, value transfer and scaling up procedures in order to control for existing heterogeneities across world regions and forest biomes. The first part of the study estimates stock values per hectare for each forest ecosystem service in the baseline year 2000 and in the year 2050. Carbon stocks represent, in general, the highest value per hectare, followed by provisioning services, passive use and recreational values. The second part provides an estimation of the welfare loss (or gain) associated with policy inaction in the period 2000-2050 leading to a change in the forest area. Welfare results are mixed and require a careful interpretation. In different world regions, no policy initiative can results in both gains and losses, which appear to be sensitive to the use of lower or upper bounds values per hectare

Ecological-economic analysis and valuation of biodiversity

This paper introduces and surveys ecological-economic analysis and valuation of biodiversity. Furthermore, the notion and application of economic, monetary valuation of biodiversity is critically evaluated. A classification of biodiversity values is offered, based on a system of logical relationships among biodiversity, ecosystems, species and human welfare. Suggestions are made about which economic valuation methods can address which type of biodiversity value. The resulting framework is the starting point for a survey and evaluation of empirical studies at each of the four levels of diversity. The resulting monetary value estimates seem to give unequivocal support to the belief that biodiversity has a significant, positive social value. The contingent valuation method is by far the most used method. An important reason is that the other valuation methods are unable to identify and measure passive or nonuse values of biodiversity. Nevertheless, most studies lack a uniform, integrated perspective on biodiversity. Therefore, available economic valuation estimates should generally be regarded as providing a partial perspective on, and at best lower bounds, to the unknown value of biodiversity changes

The economic value of wetland conservation and creation: A meta-analysis

The rationale for conservation and creation of wetlands stems from the recognition of both their ecological and economic values. This paper examines the welfare impacts of goods and services provided by wetlands. We collected 385 estimates of the economic value of 181 natural and man-made wetlands from 167 studies worldwide. The resulting database is less biased towards North America than previous reviews of the literature. The relative importance of characteristics of the valuation study, of the wetland site, and of the socio-economic and geographical context is estimated by means of a meta-regression analysis of wetland values. Provision of amenities, flood control and storm buffering, and water quality improvement are the most highly valued wetland services. The relevance of the socio-economic and geographical context clearly emerges from the analysis and, in particular, the proximity to other wetland sites is negatively correlated with valuations. An analysis of the effect of environmental stress on wetland value shows that the latter increases with stress from human development activities and uses. In addition to the basic meta-regression model, the influence of authorship effects and of the geographic regions is examined by means of a multi-level approach. A second extended meta-regression model including cross-effects shows that the valuations of specific services vary according to the type of wetland producing them