Optimizing Farmland Preservation Choices Across Communities and Jurisdictional Scales: To What Extent are Amenity Values and Selection Criteria Transferable?

This paper assesses the potential for function based benefit transfer to inform farmland preservation policy, with emphasis on distinctions between welfare estimation and policy prioritization. Data are drawn from a parallel choice experiments implemented in six communities and statewide in Connecticut. The analysis provides a range of empirical results of potential significance for policy, but two findings are of particular relevance. First, results suggest that transfer errors in WTP for farmland preservation are comparable to those found in other policy contexts, even across similar sites. Results also suggest, however, that welfare based policy rankings are strongly correlated across sites, even when dollar denominated transfer errors are substantial. This latter, robust finding underscores the risk of broad generalizations regarding transfer validity, and suggests that benefit transfer may be well suited to some uses.