Benefit transfer valuation
The SuDS Manual published by CIRIA in 2015 defines benefit transfer as:
‘A method for transferring the values ascribed to a good, service or attribute from one survey or study in relevant ways to another decision or policy context, thereby avoiding the need to repeat the survey or study.’
RICS Insight Paper ‘Value of natural capital - the need for chartered surveyors’ published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 2017 suggests that the benefit transfer valuation method (BT, sometimes referred to as value transfer) can overcome practical difficulties of affordability and feasibility that may be encountered with ‘primary’ valuation studies such as stated preference valuation or the revealed preference method. It is carried out by transferring values from primary studies undertaken elsewhere. It does not therefore require the collection and analysis of new primary data.
Its problems lie in the degree of similarity between the sites used in terms of scale, place, time, services, socio-economic characteristics, environmental and ecological conditions and so on.
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