On the reliability of benefit transfer: case of the Japanese e-health system

This paper applies CVM (contingent valuation method) in their assessment of tele-health systems in a number of regions in Japan. CVM has recently been widely adopted in the fields of environmental economics and health economics to measure the benefits of services which are not traded on the market. Although CVM is now commonly used, it requires more resources such as funds, time, and effort when undertaking surveys in comparison with the traditional travel cost or substitution method. In order to save these costs related to CVM, a new method referred to as "benefit transfer" has now drawn attention, which makes use of existing results of regional surveys in a specific area when conducting surveys of other regions. Methods attempted so far such as "unit-day-value", or "mata-analysis," are quite simple and not widely applicable to other fields or regions. This paper, therefore, proposes a method which is more general for a benefit transfer analysis by utilizing the benefit function transfer. In so doing, we focus on the economic assessments of the telehealth system which were carried out by the authors as an example.