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The Value of Biodiversity as an Insurance Device

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  • Emmanuelle Augeraud-Véron
  • Giorgio Fabbri
  • Katheline Schubert

Abstract

This paper presents a benchmark stochastic endogenous growth model of an agricultural economy. Producing food requires land, and increasing the share of total land devoted to farming mechanically reduces the share of land devoted to biodiversity conservation. However, safeguarding a greater number of species guarantees better ecosystem services, which in turn ensure lower volatility of agricultural productivity. The optimal conversion/conservation rule is explicitly characterized. Value of biodiversity is considered in its function of hedging against the volatility of agricultural production. Two aspects of biodiversity’s value are examined. We first consider the total value of biodiversity as the welfare gain from biodiversity conservation, that is, the percentage increase in consumption that the society is willing to accept to give up the optimal level of biodiversity in favor of no biodiversity at all. We then consider the insurance value of biodiversity, extending the usual concepts to our stochastic dynamic framework, defining the insurance value of biodiversity as the change of the risk premium due to a marginal change in the level of biodiversity. To highlight the impact of risk on the optimal decision as in the value of biodiversity, we use the Epstein-Zin-Weil specification of preferences and represent preferences by a recursive utility function. This allows us to disentangle the effects of risk aversion and aversion to fluctuations. Thus, the preference for some rather uncertain outcomes and the propensity to smooth consumption over time are represented by two distinct parameters, and the effect of each of them are studied.

Suggested Citation

  • Emmanuelle Augeraud-Véron & Giorgio Fabbri & Katheline Schubert, 2019. "The Value of Biodiversity as an Insurance Device," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1068-1081.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:101:y:2019:i:4:p:1068-1081.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aaz002
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    Cited by:

    1. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Fabbri, Giorgio & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Prevention and mitigation of epidemics: Biodiversity conservation and confinement policies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Fabbri, Giorgio & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Volatility-reducing biodiversity conservation under strategic interactions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    3. Thomas Douenne, 2020. "Disaster Risks, Disaster Strikes, and Economic Growth: the Role of Preferences," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 251-272, October.
    4. Marielle Brunette & Marc Hanewinkel, 2021. "Assurance financière et assurance naturelle : une application à la forêt," Working Papers of BETA 2021-28, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    5. Augeraud-Véron, Emmanuelle & Fabbri, Giorgio & Schubert, Katheline, 2021. "Prevention and mitigation of epidemics: Biodiversity conservation and confinement policies," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    6. Thomas Knoke & Carola Paul & Elizabeth Gosling & Isabelle Jarisch & Johannes Mohr & Rupert Seidl, 2023. "Assessing the Economic Resilience of Different Management Systems to Severe Forest Disturbance," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(2), pages 343-381, February.
    7. Friedrich Scherzinger & Martin Schädler & Thomas Reitz & Rui Yin & Harald Auge & Ines Merbach & Christiane Roscher & W Stanley Harpole & Evgenia Blagodatskaya & Julia Siebert & Marcel Ciobanu & Fabian, 2024. "Sustainable land management enhances ecological and economic multifunctionality under ambient and future climate," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Thomas J. Sargent & John Stachurski, 2024. "Dynamic Programming: Finite States," Papers 2401.10473, arXiv.org.
    9. Unterberger, Christian & Olschewski, Roland, 2021. "Determining the insurance value of ecosystems: A discrete choice study on natural hazard protection by forests," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Biodiversity; insurance value; recursive preferences; stochastic endogenous growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • Q10 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - General
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • O20 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - General
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

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