Kenneth E. McConnell – författare

Environmental and Resource Valuation with Revealed Preferences: A Theoretical Guide to Empirical Models provides a systematic review of those economic approaches for valuing the environment and natural resources that use information on what people do, not what they say. The authors have worked on models of revealed preferences for valuing environmental and natural resources for several decades and authored some of the seminal papers in the field. The book is a natural outcome of their conceptual contributions and their many years of experience in empirical policy research, natural resource damage litigation and teaching on the topic.

The chief purpose of Environmental and Resource Valuation with Revealed Preferences is to collect in one place current thought on the various revealed preference approaches to environmental valuation and to subject these approaches to consistent theoretical critique.

The authors develop the econometric models that underlie the basic methods: contingent valuation, travel cost models, random utility models and hedonic models. They analyze the measurement of non-market values as a procedure with two steps: the estimation of parameters of demand and preference functions and the calculation of benefits from the estimated models. Each of the models is carefully developed from the preference function to the behavioral or response function that researchers observe. The models are then illustrated with datasets that characterize the kinds of data researchers typically deal with.

The real world data and clarity of writing in this book will appeal to environmental economists, students, researchers and practitioners in multilateral banks and government agencies.