Meta Analysis for Benefits Transfer – Toward Value Estimates for Some Outputs of Multifunctional Agriculture

Abstract

As a contribution to valuing the outputs of multifunctional agriculture, we report three new meta analyses estimating value functions for agricultural conservation program impacts on water quality, wetlands, and upland habitat and open space. As is often the case in valuation, where methods have yet to be standardized, the data sets are relatively small and noisy. With a clear objective of benefits transfer, we seek robust parameter estimates for key RHS variables, even at the cost of some loss of goodness of fit. We present our estimated full equations, and benefits transfer values calculated from equations estimated after backward elimination of insignificant variables, and offer a rationale for this approach to benefits transfer.