ARCHIVE: Protocol for primary valuation studies

I. Purpose

The protocol presented here sets out a checklist of issues and information that practitioners undertaking primary valuation studies should report to enable easier and more effective value transfer applications in future.

The protocol should be interpreted is an ‘ideal checklist’ and depending on the scope of the primary valuation it may not be possible to report all of the information detailed. A study that does not cover all of the items could still be a good quality and suitable study and selected for value transfer.

The protocol may also help analysts undertaking value transfer judge the quality and suitability of primary valuation studies in relation to the policy good of interest.

II. Basis for the protocol

The protocol is based on the information needs for value transfer following the Steps 1-8 presented in the Guidelines, as well as recommendations from the Technical Report and the extensive validity testing literature for economic valuation studies. The key considerations for undertaking value transfer and assessing the suitability of a primary study are the:

  1. Similarity of the policy good and study good;
  2. Similarity of the change in provision of the policy good and study good;
  3. Similarity of the sites where the policy good and study good are found;
  4. Similarity of the policy good and study good affected populations;
  5. Similarity of the policy good and study good market constructs; and
  6. Similarity of the number and quality of substitutes for the policy good and study good.

And that the:

  1. Primary valuation study tests and presents robust results.

Where the ‘policy good’ is the good to be valued via value transfer, and the ‘study good’ is the good valued by the primary valuation study.

The protocol reported in the next section covers the considerations (i) to (vi). Further detail on how to judge the quality of the study results is provided in Step 4.

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Page last modified: 25 February 2010
Page published: 25 February 2010