The Baker Center's Interdisciplinary Group on Energy and Environmental Policy 
presents Nick Hanley, Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of 
Stirling in Scotland.  "Why Is It so Difficult to Measure the Economic Value of 
Changes in “Biodiversity”?
Thursday, Nov. 10 @ the Toyota Auditorium, 3:30 - 5 pm  Free & open to the 
public. 

Nick writes: 
“In this presentation, I run through the main ways in which economists attempt 
to measure the dollar value of biodiversity. This mostly turns out to be an 
attempt to measure the value of changes in species populations and habitat. 
We review why such estimates are desirable, and how they might be used, and 
consider examples from a number of recent studies. I then review a number of 
problems in such work, including information, preference construction and 
valuing resilience.”

Nick Hanley is a Professor of Environmental Economics and Head of the 
Economics Division at the University of Stirling in Scotland. He specializes in 
environmental economics, environmental valuation, cost-benefit analysis, 
economics of sustainable development and agricultural economics. Nick has 
written or edited 11 books on topics in environmental economics, including most 
recently Pricing Nature with E. Barbier. Nick has published over 150 peer 
reviewed journal articles or book chapters; these include collaborations with 
environmental historians, ecologists, and many other disciplines. Nick will be 
giving his talk in person and is visiting UTK from Scotland for a few days.

The Baker Center discussion forum is an opportunity for academics to share 
their research findings to a broad set of academics, researchers, and students 
from outside their own discipline but who have a common interest in 
environmental and energy issues. For more information about the Baker Center 
Interdisciplinary Group on Energy and Environmental Policy visit the forum’s 
website: http://web.utk.edu/~jlarivi1/bcinter.html. By clicking on the talk titles 
for the other sessions this semester you can also now access recordings of 
these presentations and discussions.

Please join us for what promises to be a very interesting discussion and 
presentation.

Paul Armsworth, College of Arts and Sciences
Jacob LaRiviere, College of Business Administration 
Becky Jacobs, College of Law
Chris Clark, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources