Jürgen Meyerhoff and Alexandra Dehnhardt: On the "non" use of environmental valuation estimates

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Jürgen Meyerhoff and Alexandra Dehnhardt

On the "non" use of environmental valuation estimates

24 pp.
5.27 EUR
(October 2009)

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Jürgen Meyerhoff and Alexandra Dehnhardt argue in their paper ‘On the “non” use of environmental valuation estimates’ that a gap exists between the number of economic valuation studies and the effort spent on improving non-market valuation techniques on the one hand and the role they play in actual decision making on the other hand. Among economists validity and reliability of the studies are seen as major factors. However, so far only a few investigations, which analyse the actual role of environmental valuation estimates in decision making, are available. The authors refer to a study by Gowan et al. (2006) which indicates that the quality of the estimates was not the major factor responsible for the minor role in the corresponding decision process. It rather seems to be the case that participants in the decision making processes ignored the valuation data because they were able to do the required trade-offs in the decision making process without using money as a yardstick.Furthermore, Gowan et al. (2006) conclude that (ecological) economists might look for other analytical contributions beyond monetization studies that might be more influential in ensuring that “appropriate weight” will be given to ecosystem services. Does this imply that stopping non-market valuation is the appropriate conclusion? The discussion of whether valuation of the non-market benefits is useful or not is at least as old as the economic valuation of public goods such as environmental services. Meyerhoff and Dehnhardt don’t want to repeat the pros and cons in their paper. However, by slightly being on the pro side of nonmarket valuation they argue in favour of more rigorous analysis of the meaning and use of the estimates from non-market valuation studies in actual decision making. It might be time for economists to go one step beyond providing the benefit estimates – as valid and reliable as possible – and to care about the decision making process as well. Thus, according to Meyerhoff and Dehnhardt, we may not only need a theory of economic measurement as suggested by Bishop (2003) but also a better understanding of the conditions under which the results from non-market valuation studies might become more influential.

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