People’s preferences and landscape evaluation in Italy: A review
New Medit, Vol. 13, n. 1, (March 2014), pp. 50-59
Language: EN
Jel classifications: H4, Q2, Q58
Italy passed its first landscape conservation law in 1922. The need for public intervention in this field comes from the economic characteristics of landscape that is a pure public good and an externality of the economic activities. The landscape policies in Italy are currently essentially based on landscape transformation control and on the payment of subsidies to farmers. Since the landscape policies have a cost for the citizens, in other cases it is necessary to evaluate the benefits coming from public intervention. There are several approaches that could be useful for this but they have to be tailored to the policy instrument adopted. With reference to the Italian experience the paper reviews the researches carried out in Italy in the last fifteen years highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the studies.
economic evaluation, rural landscape, public intervention
