Collaborative Research: Spillovers in Incentive-Based Conservation Programs

知识价值：拟议的研究将调查在发展中国家背景下，溢出效应如何影响基于激励的森林保护政策。尽管经济理论表明，向土地所有者支付维持森林覆盖的费用的政策可以通过提高林地的回报来产生额外的保护，但它也表明，这些环境效益可能会被“滑动”，即森林砍伐对其他地区的负面溢出效应大大破坏。相反，通过知识转移或生产选择的战略互补性产生的积极溢出效应可以增加效益。因此，了解这种溢出效应的驱动因素和规模对于设计未来基于激励的保护政策至关重要。根据拟议的减少碳排放和建立碳补偿市场的国际协议，以奖励为基础的森林保护政策预计将大幅扩大。减少碳排放的大多数低成本机会将发生在发展中国家，但是迄今为止，在发展中国家背景下基于奖励的森林保护建模或量化的研究很少。与工业化国家相比，发展中区域可能有更大的信贷限制，土地或劳动力市场更僵化，由于基础设施差而更本地化的市场，以及更大的信息障碍。这些差异可能会影响溢出的程度、位置和类型，但尚未得到充分研究。针对这一知识缺口，提出的研究将：1。建立发展中国家背景下溢出效应的理论模型；2. 使用新的空间明确方案和墨西哥国家环境服务支付方案的实地调查数据来调查这些理论的有效性；和3。制定方法，在存在溢出效应的情况下评估基于激励的保护对环境和社会经济的影响。更广泛的影响：拟议的研究有几个更广泛的影响。首先，所发展的经济理论将对墨西哥和全球的政策设计产生重要影响。了解以激励为基础的保护工作如何受到溢出效应的影响，对于制定未来的政策至关重要。目前，国际保护和发展机构正在推动这些政策，并可能在新的国际气候协议下得到扩展。第二，该项目将在墨西哥和美国的国际同事之间建立长期的研究伙伴关系和网络，加强跨境研究和政策努力，扩大代表性不足群体的参与。来自两国的讲西班牙语的学生将被鼓励作为研究助理参加，团队的女性领导将提供积极的榜样和指导机会。第三，该项目将通过为研究生和本科生提供研究机会以及开发新的课程材料来整合研究和教育。墨西哥项目的案例研究将被用作经济学和环境研究专业本科生、硕士和博士生的教学工具。这些数据将用于未来关于基于激励的保护的广泛的理论和实证研究。该项目还将产生跨学科的广泛影响。测量保护溢出效应需要开发新的遥感方法和工具来测量土地利用变化。这些技术将对各种学科的研究人员有用，并与正在进行的全球努力直接相关，这些努力旨在建立一个具有成本效益的测量和监测碳排放的系统。

Intellectual merit:The proposed research will investigate how spillovers affect incentive-based forest conservation policies in a developing country context. Although economic theory shows that policies which pay landholders to maintain forest cover can generate additional conservation by raising the returns to forested land, it also suggests that these environmental benefits may be substantially undermined by "slippage," negative spillovers of deforestation to other locations. Conversely, benefits could be increased by positive spillovers occurring through knowledge transfers or strategic complementarities in production choices. Understanding the drivers and magnitude of such spillovers is therefore crucial for the design of future incentive-based conservation policies.Incentive-based policies for forest conservation are expected to expand dramatically under proposed international agreements to reduce carbon emissions and to establish markets for carbon offsets. Most of the low-cost opportunities for reducing carbon emissions will occur in developing countries, but to date there is little research modeling or quantifying incentive-based forest conservation in a developing country context. In contrast to industrialized countries, developing regions are likely to have larger credit constraints, increased land or labor market rigidity, more localized markets due to poor infrastructure, and greater informational barriers. These differences are likely to affect the degree, location, and type of spillovers but have not been adequately studied. In response to this gap in knowledge, the proposed research will: 1. Develop theoretical models of spillovers in a developing country context; 2. Investigate the validity of these theories using new spatially-explicit program and field survey data on Mexico's National Payments for Environmental Services program; and 3. Develop methods to estimate environmental and socioeconomic impacts of incentive-based conservation in the presence of spillovers. Broader impacts:The proposed research has several broader impacts. First, the economic theories developed will have important implications for policy design in Mexico and globally. Understanding how incentive-based conservation efforts are affected by spillovers is critical to the creation of future policies, which are currently being promoted by international conservation and development agencies and will likely expand under new international climate agreements. Second, the project will forge long-term research partnerships and networks between international colleagues in Mexico and the U.S., strengthening crossborder research and policy efforts and broadening the participation of underrepresented groups. Spanishspeaking students from both countries will be encouraged to participate as research associates and the team's female leadership will provide positive role models and mentoring opportunities. Third, the project will integrate research and education by providing research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students and by developing new curricular material. The case study of Mexico's program will be used as a teaching tool for undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students in economics and environmental studies. The data will be of future use for a broad set of theoretical and empirical research about incentive-based conservation. The project will also have interdisciplinary broader impacts. Measuring conservation spillovers requires the development of new remote sensing methodologies and tools to measure land-use change. These techniques will be of use to researchers in a variety of disciplines and are directly relevant to ongoing global efforts to create a cost-effective system of measuring and monitoring carbon emissions.