Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effect of Risk, Time Preference, and Poverty on the Impacts of Forest Property Rights Reform

博士论文研究：风险、时间偏好和贫困对森林产权改革影响的影响

• 批准号: 0921207
• 负责人: Emi Uchida
• 金额: $ 1.5万
• 依托单位: University of Rhode Island
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-01 至 2011-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0921207&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effect; Risk

This dissertation research examines how individual preferences over time (present vs. future) and risk can affect people's forest management responses to strengthened forest property rights. In an effort to stem on-going degradation of the world's forests, many developing countries have implemented property right reforms that transfer responsibility for these resources from the state to communities and individuals, who can then make their own decisions in managing and harvesting the forests. The goal of such reforms is to encourage sustainable resource use; however, too often reform efforts have failed to achieve this goal. Contrary to the goal of the reform, individuals with a strong preference for immediate benefits or who are unwilling to take future risks (both of which are common among the poor) may use the forest resources faster even when given stronger property rights.This research examines these issues in the context of rural China, where a large-scale reform of forest property rights has been implemented in areas where the poverty rate is still high. This research uses field experiments that involve real monetary rewards to capture individual time and risk preferences of forestholders and then integrates the field experiment data with household-level survey data in a framework to identify how changes in household's forest investment (e.g., afforestation, labor, etc.) in response to stronger property rights depends on their preferences over time and risk.This research will add to the existing literature on the effectiveness of property rights to encourage sustainable natural resource management by examining the heterogeneity in how people respond to property rights reform depending on individual preferences. Also, this research will link preferences elicited in experiments to behavioral responses to institutional reforms as few previous studies have done. The outcome of this research is important to policymakers in China and elsewhere because it will identify circumstances in which property rights reform may not work as intended.

这篇论文研究了个人对时间(现在和未来)和风险的偏好如何影响人们对加强森林产权的森林管理反应。为了阻止世界森林的持续退化，许多发展中国家实施了产权改革，将这些资源的责任从国家转移到社区和个人，然后他们可以在管理和采伐森林方面做出自己的决定。这种改革的目标是鼓励可持续利用资源；然而，改革努力往往未能实现这一目标。与改革的目标相反，对眼前利益有强烈偏好或不愿承担未来风险的个人(这两种情况在穷人中很常见)即使被赋予更强的产权，也可以更快地使用森林资源。本研究以中国农村为背景，在贫困率仍然较高的地区实施了大规模的林权改革。本研究使用包含实际货币回报的实地试验来捕捉森林持有者的个人时间和风险偏好，然后将实地试验数据与家庭层面的调查数据整合在一个框架中，以确定家庭森林投资(例如，植树造林、劳动力等)的变化。对更强大的产权的反应取决于他们随时间和风险的偏好。本研究将通过考察人们对取决于个人偏好的产权改革反应的异质性，对现有关于产权有效性的文献进行补充，以鼓励可持续的自然资源管理。此外，这项研究将把在实验中产生的偏好与对制度改革的行为反应联系起来，这一点以前很少有研究做过。这项研究的结果对中国和其他地方的政策制定者来说很重要，因为它将确定产权改革可能无法按预期奏效的情况。