Until now there has been a substantial gap between the elegant definition of welfare change and the benefit derived from theoretical welfare economics and the ad hoc empirical techniques used by some researchers to estimate the benefits of environmental improvements stemming from air and water pollution control. In this book Freeman bridges this gap with unified theoritical treatment of concepts of benefits and the empirical techniques appropiate for their measurments.

The author describes the techniques for estimating various forms of benefits, shows how they are related to underlying economic welfare theory, and discusses some of the pitfall and problems in applying the techniques. Individual preferance theory is used as a yardstick against which the theoretical adequancy of empirical estimatinng techniques can be measured.

Freeman includes a systematic analysis of how interactions between demands for public goods and private goods can be used to derive conceptually sound estimates of benefits from market behaviour. He also discusses nonmarket approaches such as surveys and bidding ha,es. With the objective of helping practitioners select the appropiate technique for a particular purpose. Freeman examines those techniques that have a sound empirical foundation this book is intended for professional economists and students with a background in microeconomic theory.