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Valuing Biodiversity for Use in Pharmaceutical Research
Abstract
"Biodiversity prospecting" has been touted as a mechanism for both discovering new pharmaceutical products and saving endangered ecosystems. It is unclear what values may arise from such activities, however. Evidence from transactions is incomplete and existing theoretical models are flawed. We calculate an upper bound on the value of the "marginal species." Even under favorable assumptions this bound is modest. Slightly modified assumptions lead to drastically lower estimates. We extend our findings to the value of the marginal hectare of habitat and find that the incentives for habitat conservation generated by private pharmaceutical research are also, at best, very modest.
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Citations
Cited by
Linking Ecology and Economics for Ecosystem Management
FARBER, S., COSTANZA, R., CHILDERS, D. L., ERICKSON, J., GROSS, K., GROVE, M., HOPKINSON, C. S., KAHN, J., PINCETL, S., TROY, A., et al. (2006) · BioScience · doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2006)056[0121:leaefe]2.0.co;2 · Cited by 445
Conserving intraspecific variation for nature’s contributions to people
Des Roches, S., Pendleton, L. H., Shapiro, B., & Palkovacs, E. P. (2021) · Nature Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1038/s41559-021-01403-5 · Cited by 253
Economics of the endangered species act
Brown, G. M., & Shogren, J. F. (1998) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.12.3.3 · Cited by 224
Integrating ecology and economics in the study of ecosystem services: some lessons learned
Polasky, S., & Segerson, K. (2009) · Annual Review of Resource Economics · doi:10.1146/annurev.resource.050708.144110 · Cited by 192
Metadata
- Authors
- Simpson, R. D., Sedjo, R. A., & Reid, J. W.
- Venue
- Journal of Political Economy
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 1996-02
- Volume
- 104
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 163-185
- ISSN
- 0022-3808 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-534X
- OpenAlex
- W2080379417
- Cited by
- 428
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 31.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Simpson, R. D., Sedjo, R. A., & Reid, J. W. (1996). Valuing Biodiversity for Use in Pharmaceutical Research. Journal of Political Economy. https://doi.org/10.1086/262021
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