Download Estimating the value of Australian environmental assets

CRAWFORD SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND GOVERNMENT
Estimating the value of Australian
environmental assets
Jeff Bennett
Tuesday 14 September 2010
12.30pm - 1.30pm
Acton Theatre, Level 1, new Crawford Building
Light lunch will be provided
Inquiries contact Hayley Primrose Ph: 6125 4387, [email protected]
The estimation of non-market environmental values remains a challenge to economists seeking to provide relevant information to policy
makers. The demand for such information is increasing, especially in response to statutory requirements for economic analyses of policy
initiatives. Studies undertaken in response to this demand continue to be criticised for producing biased results. Research into the use of
Choice Modelling to estimate environmental values undertaken within the Environmental Economics Research Hub, based at the Crawford
School ANU, has sought to meet that challenge. Choice Modelling involves survey respondents revealing their values for environmental
changes by making choices between numerous alternative future management scenarios. Through the choices made, inferences can be
drawn about the trade-offs people are willing to make across environmental outcomes. By specifying one of those outcomes as a monetary
cost, respondents’ willingness to pay for different policies can be estimated. Hub research projects have estimated the value of catchment
protection investments in NSW and Tasmania, alternative management of nature reserves and climate change impacts. Key methodology
issues confronted in these applications have been the design of choice experiment surveys to ensure that respondents have an incentive
to answer without bias, the incorporation of uncertainty in the future management scenarios, the selection of appropriate attributes of
environmental change, the integration of value information into decision support systems and the determination of the impact of alternative
scales and scopes of analysis.
Jeff Bennett is Professor at the Crawford School and has over 30 years experience researching, consulting and teaching in the fields of
Environmental Economics, Natural Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics and Applied Micro-Economics. He is currently leading
research projects investigating the use of non-market techniques to estimate the value of the environment, the use of auctions to encourage
land use change in western China and private sector conservation initiatives. Jeff is a Distinguished Fellow of the Australian Agricultural
and Resource Economics Society and was President of that Society in 2004. He is co-editor of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and
Resource Economics and Principal of the consulting group, Environmental and Resource Economics. Jeff is also director of the Environmental
Economics Research Hub funded under the Commonwealth Environment Research Facility.
Crawford Seminars are held in our new JG Crawford Building, Building 132, Lennox Crossing, ANU Campus
Crawford Building
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