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Abstract
Policy makers are often interested in transferring non-market estimates of environmental
values from a ‘source’ study to predict economic values at a ‘target’ site. While
most applications of the benefit transfer process involve an opportunistic search for
suitable source studies, there are some examples available of more systematic
approaches to developing a framework of values for benefit transfer processes. A key
issue in developing such a framework is to deal with adjustment factors, where value
estimates might vary systematically according to the context of the trade-offs. Previous
research has identified that large differences in scope, such as between national and
regional contexts, do affect values and hence benefit transfer. The research reported in
this paper indicates that such differences are not significant for smaller scope variations,
such as between state and regional contexts. These results provide some promise that
systematic databases for benefit transfer can be developed.