Benefits and costs of non-market valuation for environmental management

环境政策的惠益往往是未定价的“非市场价值”。环境机构努力了解如何最好地衡量这些相对无形的好处，但这样做对于确保公共投资的资金价值很重要。环境经济学家已经开发和应用了各种各样的方法来估计NMV。这些方法在全面性、准确性和成本方面各不相同。然而，没有严格的工具可用于评估（a）哪种NMV方法最适合实施，考虑其成本及其改善决策的潜力，或（B）任何NMV方法是否改善决策足以保证其成本。通过创建这样一个工具，该项目将在环境经济学方面取得重大突破。

Benefits from environmental policies are often unpriced “non-market values” (NMVs). Environmental agencies struggle to know how best to measure these relatively intangible benefits, but doing so is important to ensure value for money from public investments. Environmental economists have developed and applied a wide range of methods for estimating NMVs. The methods vary in their comprehensiveness, accuracy and cost. Yet no rigorous tool is available to assess (a) which NMV method is best to implement, accounting for its cost and its potential to improve decisions, or (b) whether any NMV method improves decisions enough to warrant its cost. In creating such a tool, this project will deliver a key breakthrough in environmental economics.