Abstract
The article aims to offer a review of key economic concept of monetary valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Biodiversity and ecosystems' functions provide many direct and indirect benefits to society, but they are characterized as public goods and externalities.
Thus, it gives rise to a market failure. Market prices fail to capture social biodiversity and ecosystem benefits.
Thus, there is a scope for public biodiversity policy and an assessment of the monetary magnitude of non-market biodiversity benefits. Monetary valuation of biodiversity could be based on market prices, e.g. using the value of bioprospecting agreements.
In the absence of market prices such as in the case of non-use values, economists rely on revealed and stated preference techniques. However, the review of biodiversity values doesn't lead to a uniformed monetary indicator.
The range of monetary estimates depends on the biodiversity category evaluated, the level of biodiversity and the valuation technique implemented.