- Category: Economical
- Subcategory: Economic valuation of ecosystem services; Valuation of environmental goods & societal benefits
- Tool Type : Modeling approaches-Econometric model
- Input data: primary data may be obtained from studies performed by the analyst, but usually, this hypothetical set is not wide or rich enough to do benefit transfer. If this is the case, some databases (EVRI, ESVD…) can be accessed to retrieve information from primary studies and run the benefit transfer technique.
- Output: usually, willingness to pay (WTP) for a change in an environmental attribute or a scenario, but this depends on the available data for the original sites.
- Target users: Researchers / Trained practitioners
- Location tested:
- Level of uncertainty: depending on the quality and homogeneity of primary studies, as well as the similarity between the primary sites and the target site.
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- Difficulty level of implementation: Complex
- Skill required (for method use): knowledge of value factors, statistical skills
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- Project Scientific manager:
- Project manager:
- Johnston, R. J., Boyle, K. J., Loureiro, M. L., Navrud, S., and Rolfe, J. (2021). Guidance to enhance the validity and credibility of environmental benefit transfers. Environmental and Resource Economics, 79(3), 575-624.
- Johnston, R. J., Rolfe, J., and Zawojska, E. (2018). Benefit transfer of environmental and resource values: progress, prospects and challenges. International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, 12(2-3), 177-266.
- Loomis, J. B. and Rosenberger, R. S. (2006). Reducing barriers in future benefit transfers: needed improvements in primary study design and reporting. Ecological Economics, 60: 343-350.
- Rolfe, J., Johnston, R. J., Rosenberger, R. S., and Brouwer, R. (2015). Introduction: Benefit Transfer of Environmental and Resource Values. In Johnston, R. J., Rolfe, J., Rosenberger, R. S., and Brouwer, R. (eds.). Benefit transfer of environmental and resource values: A guide for researchers and practitioners. Springer.
- Name: Fernando Rodríguez
- Organization: University of Salamanca
- Email: frodriguez@usal.es
Benefit Transfer – BT
Benefit transfer or, more generally, value transfer, is not actually a valuation method. Rather, it is a set of techniques to estimate the economic value of non-market ecosystem services at a target site (the “policy site”, or site i) when an original valuation study is not feasible due to constraints. In such situations, benefit transfer techniques can be applied to transfer welfare measures for environmental resources, such as willingness to pay (WTP) estimates, from original valuation studies (“primary studies”) previously performed at other sites (the “study sites”, or sites j).
Benefit transfer is based on desk analysis of primary studies, allowing the avoidance of field study, so its main advantages come in the form of time and budget saving. The main disadvantage, as expected, is the higher likelihood and size of valuation errors, due to the inherent uncertainty in dealing with the differences between the study and the policy sites. In an ideal scenario, the policy site i and the study site j are well characterized and are known to be extremely similar in type, quality, extension, and condition, as well as socio-economic context, making the transfer of values a simple task. However, real scenarios hardly ever are so simple, requiring the application of more-or-less complex estimation methods.
Naturally, the quality of the output of benefit transfer techniques cannot be better than the quality of the input data, no matter the fanciness or precision of the applied transfer techniques. Note that even in the cases of poor data quality it might be a good idea to perform a simple benefit transfer analysis, at least as a screening test to assess the need of collecting primary data or carrying out an original valuation study.
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