ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

BOX 4.2 continued
ECONOMIC VALUATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ■ 85
and four national parks. Project activities include investments in infrastructure,
housing, and income generation activities.
A cost-benefi t analysis was performed on several representative project sites.
The non-monetized benefi ts (consumer’s surplus) of heritage protection were
estimated based on the results of a contingent valuation study that estimated
the willingness to pay values of both tourists and residents for cultural heritage
conservation. Monetized benefi ts were also estimated, including increases in
admission fees, tourism taxes, and extra profi ts (or rents) captured by service
providers due to the improved conservation provided by the project. Other indirect
benefi ts, such as improvements in local public health and environmental
protection, were real. Each individual site had a different economic internal rate
of return, ranging from 13.7 percent to 19.6 percent. The variation is due primarily
to the different nature and size of investments at the different sites. Sensitivity
analysis—which assumed a 10 percent reduction in the number of visitors and a
10 percent increase in investment costs—showed that the analysis was robust.
Source: Guizhou Cultural and Natural Heritage Protection and Development Project Appraisal
Document.
heritage bears some resemblance to the valuation of environmental goods. In the
next section, valuation issues in environmental economics, in particular biodiversity,
are presented.
Lessons from Cultural Heritage Valuation and Biodiversity
Valuation
Th ere is a striking similarity in research approaches to the economic valuation
of cultural heritage and that of biodiversity. Both domains make up the environmental
context of mankind, and both domains are overloaded with spatialeconomic
externalities (Nunes and Nijkamp 2011). (See box 4.3.)
A prominent issue in recent discussions about sustainable development is concern
over the loss of biological diversity (or biodiversity). Biodiversity requires
research attention for two reasons. First, biodiversity provides a wide range of
direct and indirect benefi ts to humankind, on both local and global scales. Second,
many human activities contribute to unprecedented rates of biodiversity
loss, and this threatens the stability and continuity of ecosystems, as well as aff ecting
socioeconomic activities of humankind. Consequently, in recent years much