Project analysis as input to public debate: Environmental valuation versusphysical unit indicators

Monetary valuation of environmental change is useful if one aims to rank al ternative projects according to some specific social welfare function. Howe ver, if the project analysis is intended as background information to a dem ocratic debate, the advantages of monetary valuation are less obvious. This paper analyzes aggregation of information, taking normative disagreement e xplicitly into account. It is demonstrated that monetary valuation is not a lways more informative than a physical unit measure of environmental change . (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: A 11; D61; D78; D83; H43.