This paper presents the first comprehensive estimates of the economic costs experienced by households in the 2011 Greater Bangkok flood. More generally, it contributes to the literature by presenting the first estimates of flood costs based on primary data collected from respondents of flooded homes using in-person interviews. Two rounds of interviews were conducted with 469 households in three of the most heavily affected districts of greater Bangkok. The estimates of economic costs include preventative costs, ex post losses, compensation received, and any new income generated during the flood. Median household economic costs were US$3089, equivalent to about half of annual household expenditures (mean costs were US$5261). Perhaps surprisingly given the depth and duration of the flood, most houses incurred little structural damage (although furniture, appliances, and cars were damaged). Median economic costs to poor and nonpoor households were similar as a percentage of annual household expenditures (53% and 48%, respectively). Compensation payments received from government did little to reduce the total economic losses of the vast majority of households. Two flood-related deaths were reported in our sampleboth in low-income neighborhoods. Overall, ex post damage was the largest component of flood costs (66% of total). These findings are new, important inputs for the evaluation of flood control mitigation and preventive measures that are now under consideration by the Government of Thailand. The paper also illustrates how detailed microeconomic data on household costs can be collected and summarized for policy purposes.

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Forests are widely believed to provide a water purification service that reduces the cost of treating drinking water, but few empirical economic studies have investigated this service in developing countries, where deforestation rates and thus threats to the service tend to be higher than in developed countries. Even fewer studies have investigated the distribution of the benefits of this service, or any other regulating ecosystem service for that matter, in either developing or developed countries. Using quarterly panel data for 158 water utilities in Thailand during 2004–2014, we find robust evidence that forests significantly reduced the material cost of water treatment, but we find no evidence that the cost reductions were progressive in the sense of being larger in provinces with higher poverty rates. The economic justification for source water protection in Thailand appears to hinge purely on considerations of efficiency — does source water protection provide net benefits? — not on the distribution of those benefits between poorer and richer locations. Research in other countries is needed to determine if the absence of pro-poor distributional impacts of forest water purification is unique to Thailand or the norm and if interventions that enhance forest water purification significantly reduce poverty in locations served by treated drinking water systems.

Economists typically estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) when evaluating government programs. The economic interpretation of the ATT can be ambiguous when program outcomes are measured in purely physical terms, as they often are in evaluations of environmental programs (e.g., avoided deforestation). This paper presents an approach for inferring economic impacts from physical outcomes when the ATT is estimated using propensity-score matching. For the case of forest protection, we show that a protection program’s ex post economic impact, as perceived by the government agency responsible for protection decisions, can be proxied by a weighted ATT, with the weights derived from the propensity of being treated (i.e., protected). We apply this new metric to mangrove protection in Thailand during 1987–2000. We find that the government’s protection program avoided the loss of 12.8% of the economic value associated with the protected mangrove area. This estimate is about a quarter smaller than the conventional ATT for avoided deforestation, 17.3 percentage points. The difference between the two measures indicates that the program tended to be less effective at reducing deforestation in locations where the government perceived the net benefits of protection as being greater, which is the opposite of the relationship that would characterize a maximally effective program.

This article reports the results of a comparative study conducted in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to assess households' willingness to pay for marine turtle conservation and the potential to mobilize funds. Results suggest that many people place a low priority on marine turtle conservation compared to other public policy issues. The referendum to impose a mandatory surcharge on residential electricity bills would only pass for the lowest surcharge of 0.02 USD/month. If the poor were to be exempted, this modest surcharge would only generate a sum of 1.52 million USD per year which is under 8% of the total global expenses for marine turtles conservation.Nevertheless, there is some potential for voluntary contributions. Based on the percentages of respondents who would voluntarily pay 1 USD/month, the potential revenue could reach 50 million USD/year. Mobilizing these also presents problems. The voluntary payment explored, asking people to 'check off' for marine turtle conservation program on monthly electricity bills might work once, but unlikely to be repeatable for other endangered species and environmental causes.The traditional prescription of 'raising awareness' is unlikely to yield results as urban Asians are already well informed about the existence and plight of marine turtles. Efforts to develop conservation financing mechanisms should therefore be directed in a different and more difficult direction to improve the trustworthiness of government tax collection and expenditure systems. Charities could explore potential for voluntary contributions focusing on the relatively small segment willing to voluntarily contribute and developing cost-effective ways of collecting payments. Finally, until Asia develops higher per capita incomes and trustworthy payment vehicles, the international community will need to play an important role in financing conservation in the region. 1 This article has been expanded from an earlier version under the same title published in the ASEAN