Testing the Influence of Substitute Sites in Nature Valuation by Using Spatial Discounting Factors

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• 作者：Jeremy De Valck ; Steven Broekx ; Inge Liekens…
• 关键词：Benefit transfer ; Discrete choice experiment ; Ecosystem services ; GIS ; Latent class ; Nature ; Non ; market valuation ; Spatial ; Substitute
• 刊名：Environmental and Resource Economics
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：66
• 期：1
• 页码：17-43
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Business and Economics
• 刊物主题：Environmental Economics; Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice; Economic Policy; Economics, general; Environmental Management;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-1502
• 卷排序：66

文摘

This paper investigates the effect of nearby nature substitute sites on preferences for nature restoration. Contrary to prior studies, we use a respondent-centric approach to control for substitute sites. We assess each respondent-specific spatial context by computing densities of nature substitute sites within various ranges from each respondent’s home. This approach considers the use and non-use values of nature together. Data from three similar discrete choice experiments carried out in Flanders (Belgium) are compared. Different spatial discounting factors are tested to explore how the substitution effect behaves with regard to distance. Latent class analyses are performed to account for preference heterogeneity among respondents. We observe divergent behaviours across groups of respondents. The “distance-to-substitutes” affects how respondents gauge substitute sites. We find a significant influence of the squared average buffer distance but this effect varies in sign across case studies and classes of respondents. Our results demonstrate that individual-specific GIS data can significantly improve the representation of the spatial context and the transferability of value functions. However, the roles played by preference heterogeneity and nature perception on respondents’ capacity to value nature still deserves further attention in future research.