Valuing Ecosystem Services for Agricultural TFP: A Review of Best Practices, Challenges, and Recommendations

Abstract

This paper provides a brief overview of methods to incorporate ecosystem service values into measures of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP), both in theory and in practice. This includes a review of the academic literature, a summary of related economic index theory, and a comparison of agency guidelines. We consider areas of consensus between the agencies and the research literature, as well as open debates surrounding the implementation of a standardized ecosystem accounting framework to integrate with existing TFP measures. This helps to bridge the gap between theoretical approaches to measurement and valuation in the research literature and their implementation in practice by national accounting agencies. Better connecting theory to practice also serves to highlight common challenges in the field, including questions of definition, scope, and scale for ecosystem services, as well as data collection and dissemination. We end with a summary of recommendations for moving forward.