Adjusting for cultural differences in international benefit transfer

Hynes, S., Norton, D. and Hanley, N. (2013) Adjusting for cultural differences in international benefit transfer. Environmental and Resource Economics, 56(4), pp. 499-519. (doi: 10.1007/s10640-012-9572-4)

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Abstract

Values for non-market goods can be expected to be sensitive to variations in the cultural contexts of beneficiaries. However, little progress has been made to date in adapting benefit transfer (BT) procedures for cultural variations. Using information from a study that ranked 62 societies with respect to nine attributes of their cultures, we develop an index that is then used to re-weight multiple coastal ecosystem service value estimates. We examine whether these culturally-adjusted BT estimates are statistically different than simply transferring the income-adjusted mean transfer estimates for each coastal ecosystem service from international study sites to the policy site. We find that once differences in income levels have been accounted for, the differences in cultural dimensions between study and policy sites actually have little impact on the magnitude of our transfer estimates. This is not a surprising result given that the majority of the study site estimates are derived from countries that share many ethnic, linguistic and other cultural similarities to the policy site. However, benefit adjustments based on cultural factors could have a much higher impacts in settings different to that investigated here.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:This research was funded through the Beaufort Marine Research Award, which is carried out under the Sea Change Strategy and the Strategy for Science Technology and Innovation (2006–2013), with the support of the Marine Institute, funded under the Marine Research Sub-Programme of the National Development Plan 2007–2013.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Hanley, Professor Nicholas
Authors: Hynes, S., Norton, D., and Hanley, N.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Biodiversity, One Health & Veterinary Medicine
Journal Name:Environmental and Resource Economics
Publisher:Springer
ISSN:0924-6460
ISSN (Online):1573-1502
Published Online:22 June 2012

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