Essays on computational applications in land and environmental economics

Abstract

This dissertation presents three papers. The first considers a new approach to measuring and estimating willingness-to-pay for the class of nonmarket amenities with spatially explicit components. The second examines the significance, and a possible solution for poorly observed benefits in a conservation planning setting. The third reports on experiments in mechanisms for funding the development of coastal infrastructure, a spatially explicit public good, given complex inundation dynamics.