The course Nonmarket Economic Valuation Techniques and Applications (Nonmarket Valuation for short) is the cornerstone to my Master’s degree in Environmental Economics. Its core material is what makes environmental economics a field apart from environmental science or economics alone: the assignment of monetary value to environmental qualities that were previously not valued on a money market.
Nonmarket Valuation approaches questions of environmental preservation and distributional equity through an economic lens, with the recognition that money is the language of politics and progress. It provides environmental economists the tools to communicate in concrete terms with people in positions of power about the value of environmental and community programs. This was what I would refer to as a “toolbox course,” where the primary purpose was to give students skills that could be applied in a variety of contexts. We covered a variety of modeling and statistical techniques that are commonly applied to nonmarket valuation problems, and then had the opportunity to work with real field results to create example research notes. Having the chance to work with real data in all its messy, confusing glory was a fantastic learning experience.
Our professor, Dr. Bergstrom, gave each student a dataset from a nonmarket valuation paper that he had written. We were then charged with demonstrating our ability as researchers- to take the data and create a short example of the kinds of publishable hypotheses that could come from it. This was such an exciting assignment, because it gave me the chance to “stretch my mental muscles” and see what I could do with the tools learned throughout the semester. It also cemented the value of environmental economics for sustainability work in the real world. My dataset allowed me to estimate the value of recreation at Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest, Colorado. It may not sound like it on the surface, but this was a fairly mind-boggling experience. What I did with nonmarket valuation tools was put a price on all of the incredible and intangible things that we get from outdoor recreation experiences in nature- the beauty, the freedom, the connection with life. As you would guess, this value is so much higher than the simple price to get into a park- and because it is larger it can be irreplaceably useful in communicating to leaders about why natural recreation areas must be preserved for the future of American citizens. This class gave me the tools to continue communicating with our leaders about the value of ecosystems, and because of that I found it very inspiring and worthwhile.
