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AbstractVarious methods have been applied to evaluating the economic viability of public investments in tourism. In this article, we capitalize on the strengths of computable general equilibrium and cost-benefit analytical techniques and develop an integrated approach to evaluating public investments in tourism. We apply the approach to the evaluation of a US$6.25 million investment in tourism in Uruguay from the perspective of a multilateral development bank and a beneficiary government. These perspectives differ in a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) due to the timing of the costs incurred. The integrated approach is powerful in that it captures first and subsequent rounds of investment impacts of benefits and costs; resource diversion and constraints are accounted for, and the estimation of benefits is consistent with the welfare economics underpinnings of CBA.

This paper makes two contributions to the debate on the compatibility of social cost benefit analysis and economic impact analysis. First we argue that benefits estimated through economic impact analysis are amenable to subsequent analysis in a social cost benefit framework when household utility is used as the measure of welfare. Second, economic impact analysis and social cost benefit analysis of investment loans may be evaluated from the perspective of the multilateral lender and from that of the beneficiary government. While the first is straightforward to implement, this paper develops an approach to evaluating the investment from the perspective of the beneficiary government which internalizes the repayment of the loan within the economic impact model itself. We compare these two perspectives by undertaking an economic impact and social cost benefit analysis of a US$6.25 million tourism investment in Uruguay.

There is a debate in the literature on the appropriate methods and metrics for evaluating the economic impacts of tourism investments. Available analytical techniques include input-output modelling, computable general equilibrium modelling, cost benefit analysis, expenditure-based methods, and others. Metrics of benefits often include indicators such as gross regional product, household income and measures of welfare, while the choice of appropriate metrics will in part be conditioned by from whose perspective the analysis is undertaken. In this paper, we capitalize on the strengths of general equilibrium and cost benefit analytical techniques and develop an integrated approach to evaluating public investments in tourism. We apply the approach to the evaluation of a US$6.25 million tourism investment in Uruguay from the perspective of a multi-lateral development bank and the beneficiary government. The approach developed here is powerful in that it captures first and subsequent rounds of investment impacts both on the benefits and costs side; resource diversion and constraints are accounted for, and; the estimation of benefits is consistent with the welfare economics underpinnings of cost benefit analysis.

This paper makes two contributions to the debate on the compatibility of social cost benefit analysis and economic impact analysis. First we argue that benefits estimated through economic impact analysis are amenable to subsequent analysis in a social cost benefit framework when household utility is used as the measure of welfare. Second, economic impact analysis and social cost benefit analysis of investment loans may be evaluated from the perspective of the multilateral lender and from that of the beneficiary government. While the first is straightforward to implement, this paper develops an approach to evaluating the investment from the perspective of the beneficiary government which internalizes the repayment of the loan within the economic impact model itself. We compare these two perspectives by undertaking an economic impact and social cost benefit analysis of a US$6.25 million tourism investment in Uruguay. ; Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)

Ex-ante economic impact analyses are required to demonstrate the development impact and economic viability of loans and grants extended by multi-lateral development banks. These assessments are performed under tight time constraints and often in data poor environments. This paper develops a framework for assessing development interventions in data poor environments and applies it to the analysis of the Sustainable Tourism Program, a US$15 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to the Government of Belize to foster tourism development in emerging destinations and enhance participation of low income people in the tourism value chain. This paper contributes to the literature in two critical ways: (i) the paper develops a generalizable approach to building dynamic computable general equilibrium models for development policy analysis in data poor environments; (ii) realistic expectations of agent behavioral responses to development interventions are required to calibrate model simulations. To estimate business as usual tourism arrivals and expenditure, auto-regressive integrated moving average methods were used. To estimate agent response to the development intervention, a survey-based quasi-contingent valuation approach was employed. These projections and information on investment structuring and costs were used to calibrate the model shocks. Results of this analysis show that the proposed investment will have positive impacts on Belize's economy by hastening economic growth. Gross domestic product increases 3% by 2040 and unemployment falls from 12% to 10%. Cross validating with a break-even scenario confirms that the Government of Belize would recover all investment costs even if actual agent demand response were considerably less than forecast. The model developed here may be applied to the ex-ante economic analysis of other sectoral development interventions ranging from agricultural policy to fiscal policy, from integration and trade, to health and education. ; Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS)

Ex-ante economic impact analyses are required to demonstrate the development impact and economic viability of loans and grants extended by multi-lateral development banks. These assessments are performed under tight time constraints and often in data poor environments. This paper develops a framework for assessing development interventions in data poor environments and applies it to the analysis of the Sustainable Tourism Program, a US$15 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to the Government of Belize to foster tourism development in emerging destinations and enhance participation of low income people in the tourism value chain. This paper contributes to the literature in two critical ways: (i) the paper develops a generalizable approach to building dynamic computable general equilibrium models for development policy analysis in data poor environments; (ii) realistic expectations of agent behavioral responses to development interventions are required to calibrate model simulations. To estimate business as usual tourism arrivals and expenditure, auto-regressive integrated moving average methods were used. To estimate agent response to the development intervention, a survey-based quasi-contingent valuation approach was employed. These projections and information on investment structuring and costs were used to calibrate the model shocks. Results of this analysis show that the proposed investment will have positive impacts on Belize's economy by hastening economic growth. Gross domestic product increases 3% by 2040 and unemployment falls from 12% to 10%. Cross validating with a break-even scenario confirms that the Government of Belize would recover all investment costs even if actual agent demand response were considerably less than forecast. The model developed here may be applied to the ex-ante economic analysis of other sectoral development interventions ranging from agricultural policy to fiscal policy, from integration and trade, to health and education.

Understanding the forces that drove policy in the past can inform expectations of the effectiveness of policy implementation today. Forest policies of countries with forested frontiers transition through stages of forest management, reflecting the orientation of governments toward economic development. The article follows Brazilian national forest policy from the early 20th century from colonization to protectionism, during which extrasectoral policies largely served to marginalize forest policy. More recently, profound changes in Brazil's governance structures, civil society's progressively important role in influencing policy, and recognition of the biophysical importance of forests have fostered an emerging vision of the Amazon as a region whose primary vocation is sustainable forest management. The sustainable management phase of forest policy development and the approval of Brazil's first Public Forest Management Law, given the current socioeconomic, political, and environmental context, present an unprecedented opportunity for increasing the relevance of forest policy in shaping land use.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal call to action to end poverty and protect the environment. The Government of Guatemala is prioritizing the SDGs it will focus on and defining lines of action to make progress towards achieving them. In this paper, we apply the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modelling platform for Guatemala (IEEM-GUA) to evaluate the economic, environmental and wealth impacts of strategies for achieving the SDGs. We evaluate specific lines of action to achieve the second SDG to achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture, and; the sixth SDG to achieve water and sanitation coverage for all. We find that significant new investment in these areas would be required to meeting these SDGs and that the overall pace of economic growth is critical. IEEM applied to the SDGs lends transparency and structure to the prioritization and agenda setting process. It sheds light on the need for complementary policies to reconcile lines of action that can inadvertently move progress toward specific SDGs in opposite directions. Finally, an advantage of an integrated framework such as IEEM is its ability to highlight trade-offs, potential win-wins and inter-linkages between SDGs, where one line of action can make progress towards multiple SDGs simultaneously.

Economy-wide models such as computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are powerful tools that provide insights on policy impacts on standard economic indicators. With the recent publication of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), the power of this approach is amplified. This article addresses an important gap in economy-wide policy modeling applications and literature by developing a conceptual framework for the integration of the SEEA in the CGE framework, enabling for the first time the analysis of policy impacts on the economy and the environment in a quantitative, comprehensive, and consistent framework. Previous integrated modeling efforts have generally focused on the interaction between the economy and one environmental resource in isolation, requiring significant data reconciliation. Integration of SEEA into a CGE circumvents this resource intense process, enhancing analytical power, obviating the need for strong assumptions in reconciling economic–environmental data, reducing start-up costs, and increasing the timeliness of evidence-based policy advice.

In this paper we evaluate the economic, natural capital and ecosystem services impacts of strategies for conserving Colombias rich natural capital endowment. Specifically, we consider Government program proposals for establishing Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), implementing more sustainable silvopastoral systems and expanding habitat banking. We develop and apply the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform linked with spatial Land Use Land Cover (LULC) and Ecosystem Services Modeling (IEEMESM) to shed light on the multi-dimensional impacts of these programs from the perspective of sustainable economic development and intergenerational wealth. Advancing the state-of-the-art in integrated economic-environmental modeling, our framework for the first time integrates dynamic endogenous feedbacks between natural capital, ecosystem services and the economic system to fully capture how changes in natural capital and ecosystem service flows affect the economy and vice versa. Our approach quantitatively models the economy, natural capital and ecosystem services as one integrated and complex system at a high level of spatial resolution across Colombias 32 Departments. [.]

In this paper we evaluate the economic, natural capital and ecosystem services impact s of strategies for conserving Colombia's rich natural capital endowment. Specifically, we consider Government program proposals for establishing Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), implementing more sustainable silvopastoral systems and expanding habitat banking. We develop and apply the Integrated Economic - Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform linked with spatial Land Use Land Cover (LULC) and Ecosystem Services Modeling ( IEEM+ ESM) to shed light on the multi-dimensional impacts of these programs from the perspective of sustainable economic development and intergenerational wealth. Advancing the state-of-the-art in integrated economic-environmental modeling, our framework for the first time integrates dynamic endogenous feedbacks between natural capital, ecosystem services and the economic system to fully capture how changes in natural capital and ecosystem service flows affect the economy and vice versa. Our approach quantitatively models the economy, natural capital and ecosystem services as one integrated and complex system at a high level of spatial resolution across Colombia's 32 Departments. We demonstrate how valuing biodiversity in public policy and investment analysis can make the difference between an investment that is economically viable and one that is not. Without accounting for the value of biodiversity, the proposed PES and habitat banking programs are not economically viable. Including the value of biodiversity, both PES and habitat banking become strong investment propositions with a net present value of US$4.4 billion and US$4.9 billion, respectively. The economic and environmental benefits of enhancing Colombia's natural capital base and future ecosystem service supply are demonstrated and regionally differentiated, which provides a strong empirical evidence base to inform the spatial targeting of policies to maximize economic, environmental and social outcomes .