The Value of Non-Human Animals' Life: Economic Valuation and Deliberative Approaches

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the economic valuation of non-human animals, standard neoclassical methods, non-market valuation approaches, critical limitations, and deliberative valuation frameworks.

Willingness to pay (WTP)

An economic measure of utility reflecting the benefit for an individual of one additional unit of a good, keeping the amount of all other goods constant.

Willingness to accept (WTA)

An economic measure representing the compensation needed in lieu of relinquishing something of value to an individual.

Total Economic Value (TEV)

An economic framework used to categorise utilitarian values for nature into use and non-use values under the assumptions that preferences are individual, self-regarding, pre-formed, and rational.

Use values

A category within Total Economic Value (TEV) that includes non-consumptive use (such as recreational experiences) and consumptive use of resources (such as livestock production, hunting, and fishing).

Non-use values

Also known as passive use values; values derived from knowing that non-human nature, future generations, or others benefit, categorised into existence value, bequest value, and altruistic value.

Contingent valuation method (CVM)

A stated preference non-market valuation approach that elicits respondents' preferences via questionnaire surveys with hypothetical policy scenarios, expressing values as willingness to pay or willingness to accept for a clearly stated policy change.

Choice experiments (CE)

A stated preference non-market valuation method where willingness to pay reflects the rate of substitution of preferred choice between different attributes of an environmental good, with cost included as one of the attributes.

Hedonic pricing (HPM)

A revealed preference valuation method used to infer the marginal value of environmental characteristics associated with an ordinary marketed commodity (such as analyzing hunting licence prices to inform wildlife policy).

Travel cost method (TCM)

A revealed preference valuation technique that infers preferences from money and time spent traveling to assess non-market recreational experiences such as wildlife watching.

Avoided damage-cost approach

A cost-based valuation technique where the economic benefit of an ecosystem service is assumed to equal the cost of preventing damage that would occur in its absence (such as natural pest control avoiding crop losses).

Replacement cost approach

A cost-based valuation method where the minimum value of an environmental good is equated with the cost of replacing it with manufactured capital (such as renting honey beehives as a proxy for wild pollinators).

Life Framework of values

A pluralistic valuation framework adopted by IPBES that considers nature across four relational perspectives: living from nature (resource), living with nature (important other), living in nature (place), and living as nature (self).

Deliberative monetary valuation (DMV)

A set of methodologies that integrates public participation and social learning into monetary valuation, giving participants time to discuss, become familiar with environmental goods, and consider diverse societal and moral values.

Deliberative democratic monetary valuation (DDMV)

A deliberative valuation framework where the goal is to reach direct group consensus on the common good by evaluating non-instrumental concerns (including social norms, rights, duties, virtues, and narratives) alongside benefits and costs.

Deliberated group 'fair price'

A deliberative monetary valuation indicator representing an equitable value agreed upon by a group, which introduces a moral context into the valuation process.

Deliberated social WTP

A monetary value indicator in deliberative valuation that reflects willingness to pay determined by individuals or by group consensus from a societal perspective rather than individual self-interest.

Cost–benefit analysis (CBA)

A conventional economic appraisal method evaluating trade-offs between benefits and costs across stakeholders, which typically assumes equal weighting among social groups and full monetisation of diverse ecological, cultural, and social values.

Instrumental values

Anthropocentric values that view nature and non-human animals primarily as natural capital or functional resources providing material and nonmaterial contributions to human wellbeing.

Relational values

Values reflecting meaningful relationships between humans and nature—encompassing care, respect, identities, capabilities, and connections to places—that do not trade off in the manner assumed by neoclassical economics.