Report

Benefito – Description of the Excel tool and user manual

This report is a description of the Benefito tool which provides the user with a set of damage value estimates for pollutants which are most often used in environmental analyses. The tool can be seen as an extension to the Shadow Prices Handbook (CE Delft, 2010a). While the latter source lists the values only for the Netherlands and the EU-27 average, with Benefito it is possible to obtain values pertaining to the emission of pollutants from virtually all countries in the World. Benefito uses benefit-transfer methods to calculate damage costs.  As such, it provides a first approximation of damage values. This is because benefit-transfers only hold in economics under very strict conditions which are hardly ever met in practice. However, when clarifying in reports that the used values come from a benefit-transfer approach and shortly discussing the uncertainties involved, there are no formal obstacles in using these values in empirical work. The estimates are presented in Euro at the level of prices of 2008 and they refer to two years of pollution release: 2008 and 2020.

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