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 National Science
Foundation Award #0519194 |
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Private Provision of Public Goods: Applying Matching Estimators to Evaluate 'Direct Payments' for Tropical Forest Conservation |
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| Investigator(s): |
Erin Sills (PI)
; Paul Ferraro (Co-PI)
; Subhrendu Pattanayak (Co-PI)
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| Sponsor: |
North Carolina State University, NC 27695 9195152444
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| Start Date/Expiration Date |
2005-09-01 to 2006-08-31 (amended 2005-08-26) |
| Awarded Amount to Date: |
$30,937 |
| Abstract: The world has seen little progress curbing the destruction of ecosystems. Economists have long argued that the global decline in the area of native ecosystems largely reflects a failure to create institutions that internalize the public values of intact ecosystems within the organizations and individuals that use these ecosystems. This argument implies that society can conserve ecosystems if private landowners and managers are paid for the public good they provide when they conserve native ecosystems. Based on the advice of economists, direct conservation payments have become an increasingly popular policy instrument in both developed and developing nations. Empirical evidence on the impact of these payments on conservation is notably lacking. The objective of this project is to conduct a rigorous and systematic empirical evaluation of conservation payments, using matching methods from the program evaluation field. The hypothesis is that direct payments for conservation of tropical forest result in a net increase in the area of protected forest. This proposal is for a pilot study that will both provide an initial test of this hypothesis and develop the methods for a full scale program evaluation.
As the best established and best known payment initiative for tropical forests, Costa Rica's Programa de Pago de Servicios Ambientales (PSA) provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the potential of direct payments as a conservation policy tool. The PSA, however, is a non-experimental (nonrandomized) real-world program, and thus estimating its effect on landowner behavior is not trivial. Differences in forest area (the environmental public good that is the desired outcome in this case) between the "treatmen" (with PSA contracts) and "control" (without PSA contracts) groups may be entirely attributable to the PSA or may be a result of systematic differences between the groups. This pilot study will serve as proof-of-concept and pre-test for application of state-of-the-art micro-econometric methods from program evaluation (propensity-score matching) to direct payments for ecosystem conservation. In an iterative research approach that integrates qualitative and quantitative approaches, this project will (1) develop detailed understanding of how the program has been implemented over time in practice as well as officially (e.g., process of accepting, rejecting, or wait-listing applications, and canceling or renewing contracts); (2) gain insight on landowner participation in the program by profiling treatment cases (landowners enrolled in PSA) and matched comparison cases (similar landowners not in PSA); (3) provide 'proof-of-concept' matching and estimation of participation with a small sample of landowners; and (4) test methodologies for the data collection, integration, and analysis that will be required for a nationalscale evaluation of PSA using propensity-score or other quasi-experimental estimators. This project is co-funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Economics Program.
Broader Impacts: This project contributes to program evaluation methods by developing the first application
of matching methods in which biophysical data are linked with economic data. Such linking is absolutely critical for the evaluation of environmental policies, but the two types of data are often not available at the same scales. This pilot study will allow the investigators to evaluate the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of alternative methods for addressing the integration of environmental and economic data in matching methods. There has been no attempt to apply state-of-the-art empirical program evaluation techniques to the evaluation of conservation policies. Appropriate methods for evaluating the effects of these policies would help substantially in improving their effectiveness. More specifically, the investigators will assess whether conservation payments reduce deforestation and thus whether such payments represent a simple way of achieving environmental objectives that have so far cost billions of dollars with few documented successes. The project will provide invaluable field and analytical experience to a graduate student, as well as laying the groundwork for further research that will provide opportunities for additional students. By including a Costa Rican university student, the investigators will help build capacity for rigorous evaluation of conservation policies in the tropics. They will incorporate lessons and results from this project into undergraduate teaching, as well as creating opportunities for undergraduate participation through Georgia State University's NSF-funded Summer Internship program for undergraduates and North Carolina State University's initiatives for undergraduate research. |
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| NSF Org: |
SES - Division of Social and Economic Sciences |
| Award Number: |
0519194 |
| Award Instrument: |
Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Daniel H. Newlon
SES Division of Social and Economic Sciences
SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
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| NSF Program(s): |
COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH, ECONOMICS |
| Field Application(s): |
Human Subjects |
| Program Reference Code(s): |
AMERICAS PROGRAM, 5977
ECOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, 1305
ENVIRONMENT AND GLOBAL CHANGE, EGCH
UNASSIGNED, 0000 |
| Program Element Code(s): |
7298
ECONOMICS, 1320 |
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