IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeeman/v66y2013i1p90-104.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What can we learn from benefit transfer errors? Evidence from 20 years of research on convergent validity

Author

Listed:
  • Kaul, Sapna
  • Boyle, Kevin J.
  • Kuminoff, Nicolai V.
  • Parmeter, Christopher F.
  • Pope, Jaren C.

Abstract

We develop a nonparametric approach to meta-analysis and use it to identify modeling decisions that affect benefit transfer errors. The meta-data describe the results from 31 empirical studies testing the convergent validity of benefit transfers. They evaluated numerous methodological procedures, collectively reporting 1071 transfer errors. Our meta-regressions identify several important findings, including: (1) the median absolute error is 39%; (2) function transfers outperform value transfers; (3) transfers describing environmental quantity generate lower transfer errors than transfers describing quality changes; (4) geographic site similarity is important for value transfers; (5) contingent valuation generates lower transfer errors than other valuation methods; and (6) combining data from multiple studies tends to reduce transfer errors.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaul, Sapna & Boyle, Kevin J. & Kuminoff, Nicolai V. & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Pope, Jaren C., 2013. "What can we learn from benefit transfer errors? Evidence from 20 years of research on convergent validity," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 90-104.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:66:y:2013:i:1:p:90-104
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2013.03.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069613000168
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jeem.2013.03.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirchhoff, Stefanie & Colby, Bonnie G. & LaFrance, Jeffrey T., 1997. "Evaluating the Performance of Benefit Transfer: An Empirical Inquiry," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 75-93, May.
    2. H. Spencer Banzhaf & V. Kerry Smith, 2007. "Meta-analysis in model implementation: choice sets and the valuation of air quality improvements," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 1013-1031.
    3. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    4. Henderson, Daniel J. & Kumbhakar, Subal C. & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2012. "A simple method to visualize results in nonlinear regression models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 578-581.
    5. Peter Hall & Qi Li & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2007. "Nonparametric Estimation of Regression Functions in the Presence of Irrelevant Regressors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 784-789, November.
    6. Bergstrom, John C. & Taylor, Laura O., 2006. "Using meta-analysis for benefits transfer: Theory and practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 351-360, December.
    7. James Murphy & P. Allen & Thomas Stevens & Darryl Weatherhead, 2005. "A Meta-analysis of Hypothetical Bias in Stated Preference Valuation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 30(3), pages 313-325, March.
    8. Savchuk, Olga Y. & Hart, Jeffrey D. & Sheather, Simon J., 2010. "Indirect Cross-Validation for Density Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(489), pages 415-423.
    9. Rosenberger, Randall S. & Stanley, Tom D., 2006. "Measurement, generalization, and publication: Sources of error in benefit transfers and their management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 372-378, December.
    10. Robert J. Johnston & Randall S. Rosenberger, 2010. "Methods, Trends And Controversies In Contemporary Benefit Transfer," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 479-510, July.
    11. Smith, V. Kerry & Osborne, Laura L., 1996. "Do Contingent Valuation Estimates Pass a "Scope" Test? A Meta-analysis," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 287-301, November.
    12. Sudip Chattopadhyay, 2003. "A Repeated Sampling Technique in Assessing the Validity of Benefit Transfer in Valuing Non-Market Goods," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(4), pages 576-596.
    13. Mark Morrison & Jeff Bennett & Russell Blamey & Jordan Louviere, 2002. "Choice Modeling and Tests of Benefit Transfer," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 84(1), pages 161-170.
    14. Hsiao, Cheng & Li, Qi & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2007. "A consistent model specification test with mixed discrete and continuous data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 802-826, October.
    15. Jeffery Racine & Jeffrey Hart & Qi Li, 2006. "Testing the Significance of Categorical Predictor Variables in Nonparametric Regression Models," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 523-544.
    16. Daniel J. Henderson & Chris Papageorgiou & Christopher F. Parmeter, 2012. "Growth Empirics without Parameters," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(559), pages 125-154, March.
    17. Schwertman, Neil C. & Owens, Margaret Ann & Adnan, Robiah, 2004. "A simple more general boxplot method for identifying outliers," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 165-174, August.
    18. Valentina Hartarska & Christopher F. Parmeter & Denis Nadolnyak & Beibei Zhu, 2010. "Economies Of Scope For Microfinance: Differences Across Output Measures," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(4), pages 464-481, October.
    19. Kevin J. Boyle & Nicolai V. Kuminoff & Christopher F. Parmeter & Jaren C. Pope, 2009. "Necessary Conditions for Valid Benefit Transfers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1328-1334.
    20. Roy Brouwer & Frank Spaninks, 1999. "The Validity of Environmental Benefits Transfer: Further Empirical Testing," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 14(1), pages 95-117, July.
    21. Tzipi Eshet & Mira Baron & Mordechai Shechter, 2007. "Exploring Benefit Transfer: Disamenities of Waste Transfer Stations," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 37(3), pages 521-547, July.
    22. Jon Nelson & Peter Kennedy, 2009. "The Use (and Abuse) of Meta-Analysis in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: An Assessment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 42(3), pages 345-377, March.
    23. Ouyang, Desheng & Li, Qi & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2009. "Nonparametric Estimation Of Regression Functions With Discrete Regressors," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(1), pages 1-42, February.
    24. V. Kerry Smith & George Van Houtven & Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, 2002. "Benefit Transfer via Preference Calibration: "Prudential Algebra" for Policy," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 78(1), pages 132-152.
    25. V. Kerry Smith & Yoshiaki Kaoru, 1990. "Signals or Noise? Explaining the Variation in Recreation Benefit Estimates," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 72(2), pages 419-433.
    26. Walsh, Richard G. & Johnson, Donn M. & McKean, John R., 1989. "Issues In Nonmarket Valuation And Policy Application: A Retrospective Glance," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, July.
    27. Raymond J.G.M. Florax & Peter Nijkamp & Kenneth G. Willis (ed.), 2002. "Comparative Environmental Economic Assessment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1945.
    28. Kevin J. Boyle & Nicolai V. Kuminoff & Christopher F. Parmeter & Jaren C. Pope, 2010. "The Benefit-Transfer Challenges," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 161-182, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Maria L. Loureiro & Ståle Navrud & John Rolfe, 2021. "Guidance to Enhance the Validity and Credibility of Environmental Benefit Transfers," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 575-624, July.
    2. Kevin Boyle & Christopher Parmeter & Brent Boehlert & Robert Paterson, 2013. "Due Diligence in Meta-analyses to Support Benefit Transfers," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 55(3), pages 357-386, July.
    3. Brander, Luke M. & Ghermandi, Andrea & Kuik, Onno & Markandya, Anil & Nunes, Paulo A.L.D. & Schaafsma, Marije & Wagtendonk, Alfred, 2010. "Scaling up Ecosystem Services Values: Methodology, Applicability and a Case Study," Sustainable Development Papers 60689, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    4. Londoño, Luz M. & Johnston, Robert J., 2012. "Enhancing the reliability of benefit transfer over heterogeneous sites: A meta-analysis of international coral reef values," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 80-89.
    5. Kukielka, Jessica B. & Johnston, Robert J. & Duke, Joshua M., 2008. "Systematic Variation in Willingness to Pay for Agricultural Land Preservation and Implications for Benefit Transfer: A Meta-Analysis," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6121, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Shuang Liu & David I Stern, 2008. "A Meta-Analysis of Contingent Valuation Studies in Coastal and Near-Shore Marine Ecosystems," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2008-15, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    7. Ryan Stapler & Robert Johnston, 2009. "Meta-Analysis, Benefit Transfer, and Methodological Covariates: Implications for Transfer Error," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 42(2), pages 227-246, February.
    8. Genty, Aurélien, 2005. "Du concept à la fiabilité de la méthode du transfert en économie de l’environnement : un état de l’art," Cahiers d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales (CESR), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 77.
    9. Ram Shrestha & John Loomis, 2003. "Meta-Analytic Benefit Transfer of Outdoor Recreation Economic Values: Testing Out-of-Sample Convergent Validity," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 25(1), pages 79-100, May.
    10. Kevin Boyle & Sapna Kaul & Ali Hashemi & Xiaoshu Li, 2015. "Applicability of benefit transfers for evaluation of homeland security counterterrorism measures," Chapters, in: Carol Mansfield & V. K. Smith (ed.), Benefit–Cost Analyses for Security Policies, chapter 10, pages 225-253, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Hermine Vedogbeton & Robert J. Johnston, 2020. "Commodity Consistent Meta-Analysis of Wetland Values: An Illustration for Coastal Marsh Habitat," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(4), pages 835-865, April.
    12. Newbold, Stephen C. & Johnston, Robert J., 2020. "Valuing non-market valuation studies using meta-analysis: A demonstration using estimates of willingness-to-pay for water quality improvements," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    13. Rosenberger, Randall S. & Stanley, Tom D., 2006. "Measurement, generalization, and publication: Sources of error in benefit transfers and their management," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 372-378, December.
    14. Rolfe, John & Brouwer, Roy, 2011. "Testing for value stability with a meta-analysis of choice experiments: River health in Australia," Research Reports 107744, Australian National University, Environmental Economics Research Hub.
    15. Fitzpatrick, Luke & Parmeter, Christopher F. & Agar, Juan, 2019. "Approaches for visualizing uncertainty in benefit transfer from metaregression," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Richardson, Leslie & Loomis, John & Kroeger, Timm & Casey, Frank, 2015. "The role of benefit transfer in ecosystem service valuation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 51-58.
    17. Lindhjem, Henrik, 2007. "20 years of stated preference valuation of non-timber benefits from Fennoscandian forests: A meta-analysis," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 251-277, February.
    18. Hjerpe, Evan & Hussain, Anwar & Phillips, Spencer, 2015. "Valuing type and scope of ecosystem conservation: A meta-analysis," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 32-50.
    19. Kevin J. Boyle & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2018. "Understanding Error Structures and Exploiting Panel Data in Meta-analytic Benefit Transfers," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(3), pages 609-635, March.
    20. Robert J. Johnston & Ewa Zawojska, 2020. "Relative Versus Absolute Commodity Measurements in Benefit Transfer: Consequences for Validity and Reliability," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(4), pages 1245-1270, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:66:y:2013:i:1:p:90-104. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622870 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.