Efficiency of Payments for Environmental Services: Equity and additionality in a case study from a Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico

Payments for Environmental Services (PES) have been claimed as a more efficient way of accomplishing conservation and development goals than other indirect strategies, reaching their optimum when the buyer pays the opportunity costs of the foregone benefits. Different inefficient situations have been described, like lack of additionality, where payments are given for practices that would have been adopted anyway. Trade-offs between efficiency and equity of PES have usually emerged as well. In this paper we assess the equity, additionality and stakeholders' perceptions of a PES scheme in a Mexican community inside a Biosphere Reserve. We applied structured interviews to all adults, a total of 66 people from 31 households. Our results show a dual response in equity and additionality, depending on land tenure. PES have an egalitarian effect within landowners and landless groups, but it broadens the gap between them. Additionality is low for landowners and high for the landless people in the community, even though the former are the ones with full decision over the land. Although the scheme does not seem efficient under the classical PES paradigm, it is perceived as a reward, reinforcing conservation attitudes even though most of the interviewees claim it to be insufficient.     

A study on financial opportunity costs of growing local varieties of sorghum in Ethiopia: Implications for on-farm conservation policy

The increasing interest in on-farm conservation is driven by its diverse attractive features — its participatory nature and its flexible and dynamic features; its capacity to maintain not only crop diversity but the knowledge that evolves with it; and the chance it offers to link conservation with utilization and farmers' livelihoods. To implement this strategy on a sustainable basis, policy incentives are crucial. This paper argues that opportunity costs farmers face have a role to play to design sound policy incentives. Taking sorghum as an example, opportunity costs have been examined in this paper using data collected from 198 farmers in Eastern Ethiopia. The average opportunity costs suggest the size of the required policy incentives and they are the basis to estimate the national conservation costs for on-farm conservation. The regression analysis shows that opportunity costs increase with access to output markets and extension, output price, access to input supply, experience in growing improved varieties, and the relative importance of the crop. On the contrary, plot quality, input price, and oxen ownership are reducing the opportunity costs. The paper then concludes outlining the policy implications of the empirical findings to incentive design for on-farm conservation.     

Comparative costs and conservation of wild species in situ, e.g. orangutans

The extent to which conservation is feasible is constrained by budgets and the financial sacrifice stakeholders are willing to bear. Therefore a possible objective for conserving a species is to minimise the cost of achieving that stated aim. For example, if a minimum viable population (MVP) of a species is to be conserved, the size and type of habitats reserved for this could be selected to minimise cost. This requires consideration of the comparative (relative) opportunity costs of reserving different land types for conservation. A general model is developed to demonstrate this and is applied to the case of the orangutan. In the ecological literature, recommendations for reserving different types of land for conservation have been based on comparisons of either the absolute economic returns they generate if converted to commercial use or on differences in the density of a species they support. These approaches are shown to be deficient because they ignore relative trade-offs between species population and economic conversion gains at alternative sites. The proposed model is illustrated for orangutan conservation.     

Additionality When REDD Contracts Must be Self-Enforcing

This paper examines self-enforcing contracts as a financial mechanism for reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation when the opportunity cost of the land (i.e., landholder type) is private information and is imperfectly correlated over time (i.e., partially persistent types). Because self-enforcement limits the feasible incentives, the conservation levels are constrained by the surplus created. Regardless of the degree of persistence of such opportunity costs across contracting periods, a first-best self-enforcing contract can deliver “additional” carbon sequestration beyond the business as usual scenario only if the value of forest conservation is sufficiently high. Otherwise, self-enforcing contracts can induce some, suboptimal level of carbon sequestration. The degree of persistence of opportunity costs across periods does not affect the amount of total payments provided in the optimal menu of contracts, but greater persistence of opportunity cost types leads to contracts that feature more of the total payment as a bonus in contracts for landholders with a high opportunity cost for their land and more of the total payment as an upfront fixed payment for landholders with a low opportunity cost.     

Mutual,non‐profit or public interest company? An evaluation of options for the ownership and control of water utilities

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate various organizational models for the ownership and control of natural monopolies – specifically the infrastructure of water and sewage provision in England and Wales. First, it summarizes recent discussion of who should own water assets in Britain. The paper notes the opportunity that has arisen for increased consumer involvement, and examines the relative merits of three models that have been suggested as alternatives: a non‐profit trust or company, a public interest company, and a consumer mutual. Five criteria are suggested for evaluating the merits of each type: its ability to safeguard the interests of the most important stakeholder, the consumer; avoid the necessity for a heavy regulatory regime; incentivize management to manage efficiently but without ‘producer capture’; raise capital relatively cheaply; and resist pressures to demutualize. The paper agrees with the recent paper in this Journal by Morse (2000) that, in theory, the consumer mutual has advantages. It draws on Hansmann’s work that suggests consumer ownership of water would be less costly than investor‐ownership, providing there are no large conflicts of interest between different types of consumer. Hansmann’s thesis is expanded to consider the likely benefits from wider member participation, and the hidden costs of not taking members into account. It then tests out whether customers would be motivated in practice to be active members, introducing a theoretical model of what motivates members of co‐operatives and mutuals to participate. The conclusions are that provided managers and board members are committed to encouraging member participation, the consumer mutual model would work well. It would need only light regulation, would avoid producer capture, and would be able to raise capital fairly easily, both from money markets and from members. It would need legislation to prevent it from being demutualized at some time in the future. However, if a participatory corporate culture cannot be guaranteed, or if there is a risk of decline of participation over time, other options such as a non‐profit trust or a public interest company would be less risky.     

COLLECTIVE ACTION AND ASPIRATIONS: THE IMPACT OF COOPERATIVES ON ETHIOPIAN COFFEE FARMERS’ ASPIRATIONS

Aspirations motivate behaviours, serve to mobilize and direct energy into actions, and are regarded as important determinants of success. Given the importance of aspirations and their formation in social interaction, the objective of this article is to evaluate if cooperative membership can have effects on members' aspiration levels. Face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 305 Ethiopian coffee farmers on their aspired levels in five dimensions of their lives. Results, using a propensity score matching technique, show that membership in cooperatives significantly improves the aspiration levels of the members. The article emphasizes the utilization of this hidden but important benefit of cooperatives.     

2001年经济逆风飞扬 2002年机遇挑战并存

2001年,我国GDP增长7.3%,继续保持较快增长的态势,表明国家以扩大内需为主的宏观调控政策是卓有成效的。2002年,机遇大于挑战,只要应对得当,全年经济走势将相对平稳,实现7%的增长速度还是大有希望的。     

Occupational Upgrading and Changes In Capital Usage In U.S. Manufacturing Industries, 1989–98

Proposed explanations of the role of microprocessor technology in the shifts toward relatively highly skilled workers that have occurred within industries since the mid 1970s have implications for the types of occupations that should be most affected by computerization. In this study, I measure the effects of changes in capital usage, and of the level of high-tech capital usage in particular, on skill change caused by employment shifts among detailed occupations within industries over the 1989–98 period. The study utilizes data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, which produces data on employment and wages for over 700 occupations in non-farm establishments, by industry. These data provide an unprecedented opportunity to determine the types of occupations and skills that are most affected by changes in capital and technology usage, by making it possible to measure skill change within relatively narrowly defined occupational groups.     

Does corporate board downsizing increase shareholder value? Evidence from Japan

Japanese firms that have traditionally had large boards have recently become subject to pressures for small boards. This study shows that Japanese firms that substantially decreased board size tended to adopt an officer system and so did not substantially decrease the size of the management team (executive officers and directors). This tendency is especially evident for high-performing firms that face less information asymmetry. Japanese firms endogenously choose the change in the management team size when downsizing their boards. Firms that downsize boards do not show performance improvements, suggesting that board downsizing does not necessarily raise shareholder value.     

Farmers' preferences for crop variety traits: Lessons for on-farm conservation and technology adoption

Although in-situ conservation is increasingly considered an efficient way of conserving plant genetic resources, little is known about the incentives and constraints that govern conservation decisions among small farm holders in developing countries. Using a choice experiment approach, we investigated Ethiopian farmers' crop variety preferences, estimated the mean willingness to pay for each crop variety attribute, and identified household-specific and institutional factors that governed the preferences. We found that environmental adaptability and yield stability are important attributes for farmers' choice of crop varieties. Farmers are willing to forego some extra income or yield to obtain a more stable and environmentally adaptable crop variety. Among other things, household resource endowments (particularly land holdings and livestock ownership), years of farming experience, and contact with extension services are the major factors causing household heterogeneity of crop variety preferences. Based on our experimental results, we derived important policy implications for on-farm conservation, breeding priority setting, and improved variety adoption in Ethiopia.     

The relationship among enterprise clustering,prices, and productivity in Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector

We use census panel data on Ethiopian manufacturing firms to analyze how enterprise clustering in local markets covaries with firm‐level output prices and physical productivity. We find a negative and statistically significant relationship between the density of firms that produce a given product in a given location and the local price of that product. We also find a positive and statistically significant relationship between the density of firms that produce a given product in a location and the physical productivity of same‐product firms in the location. These results are consistent with the notion that increased clustering of firms generates higher competitive pressure and positive externalities. Across firms that produce different products, we find no statistically significant relationship between enterprise clustering and firm‐level output prices and productivity. We also find no clustering effects across towns. Our results suggest that while clustering can impact firm performance, the advantages are narrow in scope.     

Does a voluntary conservation program result in a representative protected area network?: The case of Finnish privately owned forests

Conservation contracting has attained growing interest worldwide as a tool for protecting biodiversity in privately owned lands. In this policy, landowners receive payments from an environmental agency in exchange for land use practices that contribute to the supply of biodiversity. This approach may result in a conservation network which does not cover all focal ecological characteristics, because landowners determine the supply of potential targets. In addition, the contracts are typically allocated by using a scoring method that is not giving information on the representativeness of the species composition of the sites. In this study, we investigated what is the performance of a voluntary conservation program in selecting sites that would maximize the number of specific target species in the selected conservation network subject to a given budget constraint. We focused on the Finnish pilot program named Trading in Natural Values (TNV). Our data consisted of 56 mature stands covering both stands that were offered to the TNV program and stands that were not offered. All the stands were surveyed for specific groups of wood-inhabiting fungi and epiphytic lichens that can be considered as good surrogates for forest species diversity.Our results showed that the participation in the TNV program was large enough to meet the ecological goals, because the offered targets uncovered only two of the 73 surveyed species, and the cost-effective conservation network included only a few targets that were not offered in the pilot program. However, the contract allocation method used in the TNV could be improved, because many ecologically valuable targets that were offered to the program were not accepted. In general, it could be justified to survey some indicator species, which would be relatively easy to identify, to maximize species coverage in contract allocation. Surveying indicator species causes some extra costs, but these are likely to be minor compared with the costs savings in opportunity costs, due to the improved targeting of protected areas.     

How do independent directors influence innovation productivity? A quasi-natural experiment

Due to managerial myopia, managers may be reluctant to make long-term investment decisions that do not produce immediate results. Effective corporate governance can align managers’ short-term-oriented incentives with shareholders’ long-term interests. Because the board of directors is the paramount governance mechanism, we explore the role of board governance on managerial myopia. In particular, we investigate the effect of independent directors on corporate innovation. To minimize endogeneity, we exploit the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act as an exogenous shock that raises board independence. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that board independence leads to significantly higher investments in innovation as well as higher innovation productivity. Our results are consequential as they show that board governance has a palpable effect on important corporate outcomes such as innovation productivity.     

Giving Stated Preference Respondents “Time to Think”: Results From Four Countries

Previous studies have found that contingent valuation (CV) respondents who are given overnight to reflect on a CV scenario have 30–40% lower average willingness-to-pay (WTP) than respondents who are interviewed in a single session. This “time to think” (TTT) effect could explain much of the gap between real and hypothetical WTP observed in experimental studies. Yet giving time to think is still rare in binary or multinomial discrete choice studies. We review the literature on increasing survey respondents’ opportunities to reflect on their answers and synthesize results from parallel TTT studies on private vaccine demand in four countries. Across all four countries, we find robust and consistent evidence from both raw data and multivariate models for a TTT effect: giving respondents overnight to think reduced the probability that a respondent said he or she would buy the hypothetical vaccines. Average WTP fell approximately 40%. Respondents with time to think were also more certain of their answers, and a majority said they used the opportunity to consult with their spouse or family. We conclude with a discussion of why researchers might be hesitant to adopt the TTT methodology.     

文化产业园区创新要素、创新环境与创新绩效:一个有调节的中介作用模型

基于产业集聚的观点,以创意人才为研究对象,探讨文化园区创新要素对创新绩效的影响机制,并探究创新环境的中介作用,检验政策配置的调节作用。建立基于文化产业园区创新要素与创新绩效的调节中介作用模型,运用问卷调查进行实证分析。结果表明:①创新要素对创新环境具有显著正向影响,但创新要素的三个维度中,社会网络、个人成长对创新绩效影响不显著;②创新要素中的信息共享与知识溢出维度和创新绩效直接显著,而个人能力通过创新环境中介作用影响创新产出;③政策配置在创新环境和创新绩效的中介效应中起到正向调节作用,政策支持力度越高对创新产出的影响越大。因此,政府应该引导建立以创新为导向的要素集聚,通过营造良好的创新氛围,完善社会网络结构,降低区域的创新阻力,进而提升文化创造力的集聚与外溢能力。     

Board monitoring,firm risk,and external regulation

We examine the relationship between board monitoring and firm characteristics using a broad sample of firms over the 8 year period from 1996 to 2003. We find that board independence and monitoring is negatively related to firm risk in the absence of external regulation. In addition, we find that external regulatory and political pressures affect the level of board monitoring, especially after the increased focus on board composition by the stock exchanges beginning in 1999 and the passage of the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act. We find that the sensitivity of the negative relationship between board monitoring and firm risk decreases in the post 1999 period suggesting that firms have increased board monitoring in response to external regulations. We also find that these external regulations have had an asymmetrical impact on high-risk firm. In our empirical analysis we also control for other factors that affect board monitoring and find that firms in which the CEO has longer tenure and greater equity ownership have less board monitoring activity and that there is a negative relationship between the level of board monitoring and the level of shareholder rights.      

MACROECONOMIC VOLATILITY AND COUNTERFACTUAL INFLATION‐TARGETING IN HONG KONG

The present paper evaluates macroeconomic adjustment in Hong Kong with an estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model under a fixed exchange rate regime. We find that exports and world inflation shocks are the dominant sources of GDP volatility, with the risk premium taking on importance during the Asian crisis after 1997. A counterfactual simulation, assuming a flexible exchange rate regime with inflation targeting, shows that inflation would have decreased slightly, but interest‐rate volatility would have increased significantly. The welfare gains from switching out of the currency board system appear to be marginal.     

Trust and Growth

Why does trust vary so substantially across countries? This paper presents a general equilibrium growth model in which heterogeneous agents transact and face a moral hazard problem. Agents may trust those with whom they transact, but they also have the opportunity to invest resources in verifying the truthfulness of claims made by transactors. We characterise the social, economic and institutional environments in which trust will be high, and show that low trust environments reduce the rate of investment. The predictions of the model are examined empirically for a cross-section of countries and have substantial support in the data.     

Integrating ecosystem services into conservation assessments: A review

A call has been made for conservation planners to include ecosystem services into their assessments of conservation priority areas. The need to develop an integrated approach to meeting different conservation objectives and a shift in focus towards human wellbeing are some of the motivations behind this call. There is currently no widely accepted approach to planning for ecosystem services. This study contributes towards the development of this approach through a review of conservation assessments and the extent to which they include ecosystem services. Of the 476 conservation assessments identified by a set of search terms on the Web of Science, 100 were randomly selected for this review. Of these only seven had included ecosystem services, while another 13 had referred to ecosystem services as a rationale for conservation without including them in the assessment. The majority of assessments were based on biodiversity pattern data while 19 used data on ecological processes. A total of 11 of these 19 assessments used processes, which could be linked to services. Ecosystem services have witnessed an increase in attention received in conservation assessments since the year 2000, however trends were not apparent beyond this date. In order to assess which types of ecosystem services and how they have been accounted for in conservation assessments, we extended our review to include an additional nine conservation assessments which included ecosystem services. The majority included cultural ecosystem services, followed by regulatory, provisioning and supporting services respectively. We conclude with an analysis of the constraints and opportunities for the integration of ecosystem services into conservation assessments and highlight the urgent need for an appropriate framework for planning for ecosystem services.     

Attachment orientations and entrepreneurship

This research presents a theoretical model and examines it empirically to associate attachment orientations with various types of entrepreneurs. The results show clear evidence that attachment orientations not only predict an adult’s tendency to become an entrepreneur but also the type of entrepreneur he will become. Specifically, the results show that attachment anxiety is the dimension that is the most responsible for the variability of becoming an entrepreneur, while anxiety and avoidant dimensions predict his characteristics and attitudes as an entrepreneur. This paper makes five important contributions to the research of both attachment theory and entrepreneurship. First, it adds to the theoretical understanding of the psychology of entrepreneurs. Second, the attachment theory enables us to extend our understanding beyond the predictions of personality traits regarding entrepreneurial intentions in order to further predict the type of entrepreneur he will turn out to be. Third, it stresses the role of early childhood events regarding the prediction of future entrepreneurial orientation. Fourth, it uses a unique data set of real young entrepreneurs in a single industry homogenous design in Israel, which is known worldwide as a startup nation. Fifth, it focuses on the opportunity validation stage (rather than the opportunity identification of the resource allocation stages), which is often neglected in entrepreneur personality research.