The economic insurance value of ecosystem resilience

Arbeitspapier

Ecosystem resilience, i.e. an ecosystem's ability to maintain its basic functions and controls under disturbances, is often interpreted as insurance: by decreasing the probability of future drops in the provision of ecosystem services, resilience insures risk-averse ecosystem users against potential welfare losses. Using a general and stringent definition of insurance and a simple ecological-economic model, we derive the economic insurance value of ecosystem resilience and study how it depends on ecosystem properties, economic context, and the ecosystem user's risk preferences. We show that (i) the insurance value of resilience is negative (positive) for low (high) levels of resilience, (ii) it increases with the level of resilience, and (iii) it is one additive component of the total economic value of resilience.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper Series in Economics ; No. 132

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services; Biodiversity Conservation; Bioeconomics; Industrial Ecology ; Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty ; Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
• Subject: Ecosystem ; economic value ; insurance ; resilience ; risk ; risk preferences

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Baumgärtner, Stefan ; Strunz, Sebastian
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre
• (where): Lüneburg
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/30223
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET