This is a past event
Reliability of meta-analytic benefit transfers of international value of statistical life estimates: tests and illustrations.
Ståle Navrud is Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics at the School of Economics and Business at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). He has extensive experience in environmental and resource econmics, and has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters on economic valuation of environmentally related public health effects (both morbidity and mortality), ecosystem services (marine, terrestrial and aquatic), cultural heritage, and public health; and has co-edited three books on environmental value transfer, cultural heritage and environmental valuation in Europe. He was Review Editor (WG 2) of the 5th Assessment Report (Climate Change 2014) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is currently Expert Reviewer for UN Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, (IPBES).
Over the last few years he advised Norwegian Government appointed committees on "Marine Polluted Sediments", “Ecosystem Services” (both with the Ministry of Environment), and "Cost-benefit analysis" (Ministry of Finance) on methods for economic valuation and value transfer of public health impacts (both mortality and mortality) and ecosystem services; including recommended values for Valure of a Statistical Life (VSL). He has broad international experience, and has worked on 20 EU-funded research projects (European Commission (EC) DG Research, and several projects for EC DG Environment, European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the World Bank, OECD – Environment Division, European Environment Agency (EEA), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra, UK), Nordic Council of Ministers, Norwegian Ministry of Environment (MD), and Miljøstyrelsen (Danish EPA).
The title of the seminar is: Reliability of meta-analytic benefit transfers of international value of statistical life estimates: tests and illustrations.
Abstract: If there are no applicable domestic studies, there are many ways to utilize the international literature to conduct benefit transfer (BT). In the health economics literature simple unit transfer methods, rather than function-based methods, are the most commonly used. In this seminar the discussion will be on the utilization of a large database of Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) estimates, derived from stated preference studies worldwide, to investigate the reliability of meta-analytic BT (MA-BT) and compare this method with simple unit transfers in a case study illustration. Meta-regression analysis is a way to estimate how different policy-relevant factors affect VSL and is thought to improve accuracy in BT. In particular how different quality criteria to screen available studies and VSL estimates may influence BT accuracy will be discussed. Results show that quality screened MA-BT models give lower transfer errors, and in the case example MA-BT methods achieve accuracy gains over the use of unit transfer methods. However, the unscreened MA-BT method achieved around the same accuracy as the best unit transfers based on quality screened data. Hence, the transfer accuracy may in some contexts depend as much on the quality of the underlying data as on the BT method itself.