Environmental and Ecosystem Services in Benefit–Cost Analysis

Recent federal updates and activities modernizing regulation have elevated the importance of ecosystem services and clarified guidance for accounting for their value. These changes underscore the crucial role of ecosystem services in federal benefit–cost analysis, provide clear entry points that make it simplify and enhance transparency for agencies and stakeholders to include ecosystem services in benefit–cost analysis, and document advances in the literature demonstrating that ecosystem services can be credibly and robustly included in such analyses. This article serves as an overview of the updates, highlighting key changes, explaining how the updates clarify when and how to include ecosystem services in federal benefit–cost analysis, and exploring potential research avenues in the economics of ecosystem services.