Deliberative Monetary Valuation

Abstract

While economic values of nonmarket ecosystem goods and services are in high demand to inform decision-making processes, economic valuation has also attracted significant criticism. Particularly, its implicit rationality assumptions and value monism gave rise to alternative approaches to economic nonmarket valuation. Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV) originated in the early 2000s and gained particular prominence after 2010, especially in the context of the United Kingdom National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA). It constitutes a major methodological development to overcome the limitations of conventional nonmarket valuation methods by incorporating deliberative group elements (information provision, discussion, time to reflect in a group setting) in the valuation process. DMV approaches range from those that focus on facilitating individual preference formation for complex and unfamiliar environmental changes and stay close to neoclassical economic theory to those that try to go beyond methodological individualism and monetary valuation to include a plurality of different values. The theoretical foundation of DMV comprises a mix of economic welfare theory, on the one hand, and various strands of deliberative democratic theory and discourse ethics, on the other. DMV formats are mostly inspired by deliberative institutions such as citizens’ juries and combine those with stated preference methods such as choice experiments. While the diversity of approaches within this field is large, it has been demonstrated that deliberation can lead to more well-informed and stable preferences as well as facilitate the inclusion of considerations going beyond self-interest. Future research challenges surrounding DMV include the exploration of intergroup power relations and group dynamics as well as the theoretical status and the validity of DMV results.