IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v68y2009i6p1591-1598.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using the budget constraint to monetarise impact assessment results

Author

Listed:
  • Weidema, Bo Pedersen

Abstract

Recent developments in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) provide a basis for reducing the uncertainty in monetarisation of environmental impacts. The LCIA method "Ecoindicator99" provides impact pathways ending in a physical score for each of the three safeguard subjects humans, ecosystems, and resources. We redefine these damage categories so that they can be measured in terms of Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) for impacts on human well-being, Biodiversity Adjusted Hectare Years (BAHYs) for impacts on ecosystems, and monetary units for impacts on resource productivity. The monetary value of a QALY can be derived from the budget constraint, i.e. the fact that the average annual income is the maximum that an average person can pay for an additional life year. Since a QALY by definition is a life-year lived at full well-being, the budget constraint can be determined as the potential annual economic production per capita at full well-being. We determine this to be 74,000 EUR with an uncertainty estimate of 62,000 to 84,000 EUR. This corresponds well to the 74,627 EUR willingness-to-pay estimate of the ExternE project. Differences to other estimates can be explained by inherent biases in the valuation approaches used to derive these estimates. The value of ecosystems can be expressed in monetary terms or in terms of QALYs, as the share of our well-being that we are willing to sacrifice to protect the ecosystems. While this trade-off should preferably be done by choice modelling, only one such study was found at the level of abstraction that allows us to relate BAHYs to QALYs or monetary units. Stressing the necessity for such studies, we resort to suggest a temporary proxy value of 1400 EUR/BAHY (or 52 BAHY/QALY), with an uncertainty range of 350 to 3500 EUR/BAHY. The practical consequences of the above-described monetarisation values has been investigated by combining them with the midpoint impact categories of two recent LCIA methods, thus providing a new LCIA method with the option of expressing results in both midpoints and an optional choice between QALY and monetary units as endpoint. From our application of the new method to different case studies, it is noteworthy that resource impacts obtain less emphasis than in previous LCIA methods, while impacts on ecosystems obtain more importance. This shows the significance of being able to express impacts on resources and ecosystems in the same units as impacts on human well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Weidema, Bo Pedersen, 2009. "Using the budget constraint to monetarise impact assessment results," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(6), pages 1591-1598, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2009:i:6:p:1591-1598
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(08)00047-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nick Hanley & Susana Mourato & Robert E. Wright, 2001. "Choice Modelling Approaches: A Superior Alternative for Environmental Valuatioin?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 435-462, July.
    2. repec:bla:jecsur:v:15:y:2001:i:3:p:435-62 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John Harte & Annette Ostling & Jessica L. Green & Ann Kinzig, 2004. "Climate change and extinction risk," Nature, Nature, vol. 430(6995), pages 34-34, July.
    4. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    5. Richard A. Hirth & Michael E. Chernew & Edward Miller & A. Mark Fendrick & William G. Weissert, 2000. "Willingness to Pay for a Quality-adjusted Life Year," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 20(3), pages 332-342, July.
    6. Richard Tol, 2002. "Estimates of the Damage Costs of Climate Change. Part 1: Benchmark Estimates," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 21(1), pages 47-73, January.
    7. Marc L. Imhoff & Lahouari Bounoua & Taylor Ricketts & Colby Loucks & Robert Harriss & William T. Lawrence, 2004. "Global patterns in human consumption of net primary production," Nature, Nature, vol. 429(6994), pages 870-873, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wesley R. Brooks & Stephen C. Newbold, 2013. "Ecosystem damages in integrated assessment models of climate change," NCEE Working Paper Series 201302, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Mar 2013.
    2. Brooks, Wesley R. & Newbold, Stephen C., 2014. "An updated biodiversity nonuse value function for use in climate change integrated assessment models," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 342-349.
    3. repec:zbw:rwidps:0030 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha & Ganesh Thapa & Samuel Kobina Annim, 2013. "Financial Crisis In Asia: Its Genesis, Severity And Impact On Poverty And Hunger," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(8), pages 1105-1116, November.
    5. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    6. Erich Gundlach, 2003. "Growth Effects of EU Membership: The Case of East Germany," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 237-270, September.
    7. Lee, Jong-Wha, 2005. "Human capital and productivity for Korea's sustained economic growth," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 663-687, August.
    8. Luca Marchiori & I-Ling Shen & Frédéric Docquier, 2013. "Brain Drain In Globalization: A General Equilibrium Analysis From The Sending Countries' Perspective," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(2), pages 1582-1602, April.
    9. Ivana Fellini & Raffaele Guetto & Emilio Reyneri, 2018. "Poor Returns to Origin-Country Education for Non-Western Immigrants in Italy: An Analysis of Occupational Status on Arrival and Mobility," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(3), pages 34-47.
    10. Pantelis Kalaitzidakis & Theofanis P. Mamuneas & Thanasis Stengos, 2008. "The Contribution of Pollution to Productivity Growth," Working Paper series 06_08, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    11. repec:rza:wpaper:183 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Julián Messina, 2005. "Institutions and Service Employment: A Panel Study for OECD Countries," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 19(2), pages 343-372, June.
    13. Cem Ertur & Antonio Musolesi, 2017. "Weak and Strong Cross‐Sectional Dependence: A Panel Data Analysis of International Technology Diffusion," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 477-503, April.
    14. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "The political economy of ethnolinguistic cleavages," Working Papers 2009-17, Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Ciencias Sociales.
    15. Blanco, Luisa & Grier, Robin, 2012. "Natural resource dependence and the accumulation of physical and human capital in Latin America," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 281-295.
    16. Marko Korhonen & Suvi Kangasrääsiö & Rauli Svento, 2017. "Climate change and mortality: Evidence from 23 developed countries between 1960 and 2010," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 5107635, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    17. Chaikaew, Pasicha & Hodges, Alan W. & Grunwald, Sabine, 2017. "Estimating the value of ecosystem services in a mixed-use watershed: A choice experiment approach," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 228-237.
    18. Kui-Wai Li & Tung Liu & Lihong Yun, 2007. "Technology Progress, Efficiency, and Scale of Economy in Post-reform China," Working Papers 200701, Ball State University, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2007.
    19. Georgios Gioldasis & Antonio Musolesi & Michel Simioni, 2020. "Model uncertainty, nonlinearities and out-of-sample comparison: evidence from international technology diffusion," Working Papers hal-02790523, HAL.
    20. Ahmet Faruk Aysan & …mer Faruk Baykal & Marie-Ange Véganzonès–Varoudakis, 2011. "The Effects of Convergence in Governance on Capital Accumulation in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Countries," Chapters, in: Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland (ed.), Does Economic Governance Matter?, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    21. Steve Newbold & Charles Griffiths & Christopher C. Moore & Ann Wolverton & Elizabeth Kopits, 2010. "The "Social Cost of Carbon" Made Simple," NCEE Working Paper Series 201007, National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, revised Aug 2010.
    22. Carolina Lennon, 2008. "Trade in services and trade in goods: differences and complementarities," Working Papers halshs-00586223, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2009:i:6:p:1591-1598. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.