Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]

IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/got/gotcrc/105.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Valuing financial, health, and environmental benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan

Author

Listed:
  • Shahzad Kouser

    (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

  • Matin Qaim

    (Georg-August-University Göttingen)

Abstract
Data from a farm survey and choice experiment are used to value the benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan. Unlike previous research on the economic impacts of Bt, which mostly concentrated on financial benefits in terms of gross margins, we also quantify and monetize positive externalities associated with technology adoption. Due to lower chemical pesticide use on Bt cotton plots, there are significant health advantages in terms of reduced incidence of acute pesticide poisoning, and environmental advantages in terms of higher biodiversity and lower soil and groundwater contamination. These positive externalities are valued at US$ 79 per acre, of which half is attributable to health and the other half to environmental improvements. Adding average gross margin gains of US$ 204 results in an aggregate benefit of US$ 283 per acre of Bt, or US$ 1.7 billion for the total Bt cotton area in Pakistan.

Suggested Citation

  • Shahzad Kouser & Matin Qaim, 2012. "Valuing financial, health, and environmental benefits of Bt cotton in Pakistan," Courant Research Centre: Poverty, Equity and Growth - Discussion Papers 105, Courant Research Centre PEG.
  • Handle: RePEc:got:gotcrc:105
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www2.vwl.wiso.uni-goettingen.de/courant-papers/CRC-PEG_DP_105.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bt cotton; Pesticide use; Health and environmental benefits; Choice experiment; Pakistan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:got:gotcrc:105. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Dominik Noe (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/82144.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.