Meta-analysis: Rationale, issues and application

This chapter reviews the key reasons for using meta-analysis for benefit transfer and provides an illustrative case study application. The case study involves a meta-analysis of values for improved river health in Australia from 2000 to 2009. To minimize potential problems of commensurability and methodology, we restrict the analysis to consider only values drawn from choice experiments . Different measures and scales of river health across studies were reconciled by transforming implicit prices into a comparable standard of willingness to pay (WTP) per kilometer of river in good health. Ordinary least squares and random effects meta-regression models were used to identify systematic relationships between the dependent variable (WTP/km) and explanatory variables characterizing sites, populations, affected resources, and primary study methodology. The case study illustrates both advantages and challenges involved in the application of meta-analysis to benefit transfer.