Valuing natural assets: The economics of natural resource damage assessment
- eds.
In this collection of papers-originally prepared for a conference held by Resources for the Future in 1988 but rewritten since then in response to rapidly changing developments-the editors and other contributors examine the complex and evolving interactions among economic research on assessing natural resource damages, legislation (such as Superfund) establishing liability for such damages, and the litigation and regulatory processes affecting implementation of damage assessments. Recent court decisions have suggested that among the injuries to publicly owned natural resources for which liability may be claimed are losses of the nonmarket services of the resources; as Kopp and Smith explain, such injuries are seen to diminish people's valuation of these services, and the diminished value is a measure of the economic damage. The challenge to economists-which is the focus of this book-is how to measure such nonmarket values in the context of litigation, regulations, and the damage assessment provisions of Superfund. Contributors reveal that although existing nonmarket valuation methods, such as contingent valuation, have been used to assess natural resource damages, the damage assessment process itself has dramatically changed the context for applying these methods and has had a major influence on economic research associated with nonmarket valuation of environmental resources. In that context, for example, valuation of nonmarket measures takes place largely in the courtroom rather than in agencies, and the procedure itself changes how the measures are presented, received, and defended.
- OSTI ID:
- 6334156
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: From review in Resources for the Future, No. 111 (Spring 1993)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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