Can Mixed Methods Be Used for Environmental Economics?

Carl Mackensen

Professor Sanjay Pandey

Mixed Methods

Final Paper

Abstract

            My research question is whether environmental economics can be completed rigorously using mixed methods.  I am interested in this because I want to complete environmental economical analysis for my dissertation.  I employed a key word search of Google Scholar and the GWU library websites to identify economic analyses that used mixed methods in their analyses.  They ran the gamut in terms of methodology used and analytics created.  As such, I refined my analysis to ten key articles which showcased the different means available to analysts of an economic nature.  These articles were all relevant to my research questions, as they were exploratory in nature.  Reviewing these studies informs the way in which I will go about conducting my dissertation.  I found answers to what methods are available, but this was not exhaustive.  I then put the ten most compelling articles into a table, where I analyzed what each had to offer, and how each was structured.  I found that the methods are diverse, but that all are defensible and rigorously researched.  In terms of what this means for my research question, I Feel motivated to employ mixed methods in my dissertation now, and I have learned a great deal about this methodology.  What is missing is exactly how I will employ this, and what conclusions I may draw.  This depends on what I ultimately decide to focus on in my dissertation, though I have a fairly straight forward idea of what it will be.

Section One: Write an introduction talking about your research question(s) and why does this question interest you?

At my core, I am an Economist.  My first Masters was from Duke University, in Environmental Economics and Policy.  As I move through the TSPPA and complete my PhD in PPPA, I am increasingly drawn back to the methods of Economists that I learned over a decade ago.  My research question is, how do Economists employ mixed-methods methodology to implement studies that are more powerful and impactful than traditional, quantitative studies.  For my first Masters, my training was almost entirely in quantitative methods.  Now, having taken the Mixed-Methods course at GWU, I am increasingly interested in employing such a methodology in my dissertation.  Specifically, I will be comparing Greek and Turkish Cypriot farmers, in their access to finance and capital for climate mitigation and adaptation.  I chose this topic because Cyprus is a single geographical entity separated by two governments.  As such, it forms the basis of a perfect natural experiment.  I will be conducting surveys, primarily of farmers, and attempt to do some non market valuation for the ecosystem services which they perform by virtue of their farming activities.  This may be employ either revealed preference or stated preference measures to approximate these values.

As such, I view this assignment as an opportunity to better familiarize myself with the literature of mixed methods methodologies employed by Economists.  I am interested in this because it will serve my dissertation well.  I am interested in employing such a methodology in my dissertation, in turn, because I believe, after taking this course, that such a method can be more fruitful than either a strictly qualitative or quantitative method.  I am interested in my dissertation topic because I believe climate change poses an existential risk to life on Earth, with the only equivalently dangerous human activity being nuclear weapons proliferation.  I have devoted my academic career thus far to Environmental Economics and Policy.  This began as an undergraduate student at GWU, when I took an Environmental and Natural Resource Economics course, as part of my Economics major.  I also majored in Psychology and Philosophy, and minored in Statistics and Peace Studies.  My first Masters is described above, and my second was an MPA in energy and environment from Columbia University, and my third was an MIA in security and sustainability from The Hertie School in Berlin.  Now I have moved on to the PhD, and hope that my dissertation will be informed by a mixed methods methodology.

As for a roadmap for this paper, I begin by scanning the literature.  I describe my search strategy, and my results.  I describe how many articles I found, and what struck me about them.  I detail how relevant these articles are to my research questions and what makes them relevant.  I then detail what kind of adjustments are necessary to move on to the search strategy and research questions.  In the next section, selecting the literature, I focus on ten specific studies, and how I chose them.  I detail whether reviewing these studies will help me answer my research questions fully, and what I will find answers to as well as what I won’t.  I ponder how I would have expanded upon this if I did not have a time constraint.  My next section, extraction, I describe what information I need from the studies and why.  I create a table for this purpose.  I then describe in words the information extracted in the table, to highlight and go over any key points.  I then conclude with a conclusion, in which I reflect on what this work means for my research question, what new items I have picked up about the research question, and what I may have missed or remain ignorant of, and how this may be remedied.

Section Two - SCANNING THE LITERATURE (name the literature here and hereafter) -What search strategy did you develop to identify relevant scholarly literature (search terms, databases, inclusion / exclusion rules)? -What were the results of your search – how many articles did you identify; what struck you about these articles? How relevant are the articles to your research question(s) and what makes them relevant? -What kind of adjustment is needed for you to proceed (to the search strategy? to the research questions?)?

Section Two A: Literature

Silva, J. A., & Mosimane, A. W. (2013). Conservation-based rural development in Namibia: a mixed-methods assessment of economic benefits. The Journal of Environment & Development, 22(1), 25-50.

Al-Hamad, A., Yasin, Y. M., & Metersky, K. (2024). Predictors, barriers, and facilitators to refugee women’s employment and economic inclusion: A mixed methods systematic review. Plos one, 19(7), e0305463.

Downward, P., & Mearman, A. (2007). Retroduction as mixed-methods triangulation in economic research: reorienting economics into social science. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31(1), 77-99.

Malhotra, S. K., Mantri, S., Gupta, N., Bhandari, R., Armah, R. N., Alhassan, H., ... & Masset, E. (2024). Value chain interventions for improving women's economic empowerment: A mixed‐methods systematic review and meta‐analysis. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 20(3), e1428.

Mistry, R. S., Lowe, E. D., Benner, A. D., & Chien, N. (2008). Expanding the family economic stress model: Insights from a mixed‐methods approach. Journal of marriage and family, 70(1), 196-209.

Masset, E., Kapoor Malhotra, S., Gupta, N., Bhandari, R., White, H., MacDonald, H., ... & Sharma Waddington, H. (2023). PROTOCOL: The impact of agricultural mechanisation on women's economic empowerment: A mixed‐methods systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 19(3), e1334.

Salloum, R. G., D’Angelo, H., Theis, R. P., Rolland, B., Hohl, S., Pauk, D., ... & Fiore, M. (2021). Mixed-methods economic evaluation of the implementation of tobacco treatment programs in National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers. Implementation science communications, 2, 1-12.

Cloutier, L. M., Arcand, S., Laviolette, E. M., & Renard, L. (2017). Collective economic conceptualization of strategic actions by Québec cidermakers: a mixed methods–based approach. Journal of Wine Economics, 12(4), 405-415.

van der Putten, I. M., Evers, S. M., Deogaonkar, R., Jit, M., & Hutubessy, R. C. (2015). Stakeholders’ perception on including broader economic impact of vaccines in economic evaluations in low and middle income countries: a mixed methods study. BMC public health, 15, 1-11.

Schmidt, S. M., Iwarsson, S., Hansson, Å., Dahlgren, D., & Kylén, M. (2023). Homeownership While Aging—How Health and Economic Factors Incentivize or Disincentivize Relocation: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Project. JMIR Research Protocols, 12(1), e47568.

Dopp, A. R., Mundey, P., Beasley, L. O., Silovsky, J. F., & Eisenberg, D. (2019). Mixed-method approaches to strengthen economic evaluations in implementation research. Implementation Science, 14, 1-9.

Ananthapavan, J., Sacks, G., Moodie, M., Nguyen, P., & Carter, R. (2022). Preventive health resource allocation decision-making processes and the use of economic evidence in an Australian state government—a mixed methods study. Plos one, 17(9), e0274869.

Rathod, S. D., Guise, A., Annand, P. J., Hosseini, P., Williamson, E., Miners, A., ... & Platt, L. (2021). Peer advocacy and access to healthcare for people who are homeless in London, UK: a mixed method impact, economic and process evaluation protocol. BMJ open, 11(6), e050717.

Beulen, Y. H., Geelen, A., De Vries, J. H., Super, S., Koelen, M. A., Feskens, E. J., & Wagemakers, A. (2020). Optimizing low–socioeconomic status pregnant women’s dietary intake in the Netherlands: Protocol for a mixed methods study. JMIR Research Protocols, 9(2), e14796.

Stuber, J. M., Lakerveld, J., Beulens, J. W., & Mackenbach, J. D. (2023). Better understanding determinants of dietary guideline adherence among Dutch adults with varying socio-economic backgrounds through a mixed-methods exploration. Public health nutrition, 26(6), 1172-1184.

Section Two B: Reflection

In order to find the required scholarly articles, I searched both Google Scholar, and the GWU Library databases.  I used the search term ‘economics mixed methods.’  I included articles which were focused on economic issues and employed a mixed method methodology.  The results of my search were hundreds of articles and books.  Being unable to peruse them all, I examined the first 50 results of each respective database.  I subsequently identified 15 articles.  I was struck by both the depth of the analytics of these articles, as well as the breadth of topics covered by the search term.  The 15 articles are all good examples of mixed methods approaches to different economic questions, and as such they are relevant to my research question articulated above.  In order to move forward, I need to focus on articles which are core studies of issues, as opposed to meta studies, or reflections on methodology.  I need articles which do real world analytics for my research questions, and as such, I narrowed the selection to ten core articles which will form the basis of the remainder of my analysis.

Section Three: SELECTING THE LITERATURE - For your “adjusted search”, draw a flow diagram to document the results of your search. -How did you decide on which 10 studies to review? Elaborate - will reviewing these studies help you answer your research questions fully? What will you likely find good answers to and what will remain unanswered. If you did not have the time constraint of a semester, how would you augment this step?

I decided on the ten studies described below by deeply diving into the literature returned by my search.  I found articles which are not reflections on methodology, but tackle real world problems with their analytics.  I made sure that each article was a mixed methods methodology that focused on economic issue of different verities which would inform my dissertation.  Reviewing these articles will allow me to answer the bulk of my research questions fully, as my research question is exploratory in nature.

I want to better understand the nature of economic mixed methods approaches to analytics.  In order to do this, I need to survey examples of such analyses.  I am doing this because my dissertation will employ a mixed methods approach to the topic at hand.  As such, I want to completely familiarize myself with all the types of mixed methods available to economists.

I will likely find answers to what different methodologies economists have used in order to perform mixed methods analytics.  This is the nature of my research question, specifically, what mixed methods approaches are available to economists for their analytics.  I will likely not exhaust this topic, as my search is limited by time and length of this assignment.  If I did not have the time constraint of this semester, I would augment this analysis by also searching for articles by economists which have the key search words ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative.’  Doing this would produce more results than my initial search, and allow for a fuller picture of what methods are available to economists.

Section Four: EXTRACTING RELEVANT INFORMATION FROM THE LITERATURE 3 - Knowing the research question, what information do you need from the studies? Why? - Design and populate a table to extract information from the 10 papers. - Describe in words, in a page or two, the information extracted in the table – purpose is to describe the table as well as highlight and elaborate on key points.

As my research question is primarily exploratory, whatever information I can glean from the examination of the refined ten studies will be helpful.  This is because I am attempting to learn best practices for when I complete my dissertation.  My dissertation will be an environmental economics mixed methods study of Cypriot farmers, comparing their access to capital for climate change mitigation and adaptation.  As such, any economic study which has been published is of interest to me in terms of the methodology they employ for examination of their respective topics.  As such, the information I need from these studies primarily is methodological, but can also include the research questions posed, as well as the conclusions that were able to be drawn as a result of their analyses.

Section Four B: Reflection:

The table above covers a myriad of topics of interest for the ten papers I looked at in greater depth.  Most notably, the papers have all been completed within the last twenty years.  They employ different, though sometimes overlapping methodological frameworks for their analyses.  Their findings, as a result, are varied.  The key point from this table is that economic mixed methods approaches are diverse, and as such, there are many tools available to me to employ in my dissertation.

All of the studies, however, share a few things in common.  Most notably, aside from all having been published and all using mixed methods, the articles are deep in the scholarship around their desired topics of interest.  As such, they are highly informative as to the methods and conclusions available to me for use in my dissertation.

I have not yet decided exactly what form my dissertation will take in terms of the methodology, but I am certain that I wish to employ a mixed methods methodology.  As such, all of these papers have been fruitful to examine for me moving forwards.  My research question for this paper was exploratory, namely, how do economists use mixed methods.  What I have found is a plethora of examples as to how and why these methods are employed.

For my specific dissertation, which will be informed by this paper, I will likely engage in non market valuation of the benefits of climate adaptation and mitigation which results from access to capital.  As such, I will need to perform interviews and surveys.  The above literature has made clear to me how and why this should be employed.  I will then move on to the quantitative measure, namely, taking that qualitative data and determining the value added to society, as an economist would, for these interventions.  As such, it will prove to be challenging, but impactful and generalizable.

Section Five: Write a conclusion that answers the following questions: - What does all this work mean for my research question? What new things have I learned about the research question? What limits and blind spots remain and how may they be addressed?

This work shows that my core research question, that of whether economic analysis can be performed using mixed methods, is a resounding yes.  I have learned many different methods and methodologies for completing the economic analysis of multiple different types and kinds of data, for different purposes, and for different research questions.  I feel confident now that I can complete a mixed method evaluation like that described above for my dissertation.

I have learned that I am not limited to the traditional methods of quantitative analysis for my research question.  I can combine surveys with interviews for qualitative analysis, and complete quantitative analysis either separately, or making use of the qualitative outputs.  Further, once I define my research questions for the dissertation adequately, I feel confident that I can use these methods to make impactful and substantive contributions to my field.  I also believe now that I do not have to wait to go to Cyprus to begin the analytics.  I can conduct systematic and systemic reviews of the existing data and research, and have this form the basis of my future analysis. 

The limits and blind spots that remain for my research question moving forward are primarily which of the existing mixed methods methodologies I may choose to employ.  I want to conduct environmental economics, specifically non market valuation, but I am not limited to the traditional methods of revealed preference or stated preference.  As such, my only limit is my imagination.