Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)

Environmental conditional cash transfers, or "payments for ecosystem services" are a centerpiece of global efforts to protect biodiversity, safeguard watersheds, and mitigate climate change by reducing forest loss. This paper evaluates th...

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Main Authors:	Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M., Sims, Katharine R.E., Orozco-Olvera, Victor Hugo, Costica, Laura, Fernandez Medina, Jorge David, Romo-Monroy, Sofia, Pagiola, Stefano
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2019
Subjects:	DEFORESTATION ECOSYSTEM SERVICES LAND CONSERVATION SOCIAL CAPITAL REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY REDD CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/694951547752004287/Can-Environmental-Cash-Transfers-Reduce-Deforestation-and-Improve-Social-Outcomes-A-Regression-Discontinuity-Analysis-of-Mexico-s-National-Program-2011-2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31175

id	okr-10986-31175
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-311752022-09-19T12:16:49Z Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014) Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M. Sims, Katharine R.E. Orozco-Olvera, Victor Hugo Costica, Laura Fernandez Medina, Jorge David Romo-Monroy, Sofia Pagiola, Stefano DEFORESTATION ECOSYSTEM SERVICES LAND CONSERVATION SOCIAL CAPITAL REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY REDD CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Environmental conditional cash transfers, or "payments for ecosystem services" are a centerpiece of global efforts to protect biodiversity, safeguard watersheds, and mitigate climate change by reducing forest loss. This paper evaluates the impacts of Mexico's national payments for ecosystem services program, which provides five years of payments to landowners in exchange for maintaining and managing natural land cover. Using a regression discontinuity design, the paper studies impacts on environmental, socioeconomic, and social capital outcomes for the 2011-14 program cohorts. The analysis finds that treated communities increased management activities to protect land cover, such as patrolling for illegal conversion or combatting soil erosion (by 48 percent compared to controls). The program reduced the loss of tree cover in areas at high risk of deforestation (by 29 percent compared to controls), with effects being larger for those that have been in the program the longest (38 percent compared to controls). These results are similar to estimates of impact for earlier program cohorts and continue to highlight the importance of targeting the program to areas of high risk of land cover loss to increase environmental effectiveness. The program continued to reach poor communities and households, but estimated impacts on household wealth indicators are small in magnitude and not statistically significant. These results indicate that community-level conditional payments did not harm household-level socioeconomic indicators, a key safeguard requirement of conservation policies of the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. The data also show that payments for ecosystem services significantly increased community social capital -- the institutions, attitudes, and values that govern human interactions -- (by 9 percent compared to controls), and these externally provided incentives did not crowd out household contributions to other community work. 2019-01-31T20:39:12Z 2019-01-31T20:39:12Z 2019-01 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/694951547752004287/Can-Environmental-Cash-Transfers-Reduce-Deforestation-and-Improve-Social-Outcomes-A-Regression-Discontinuity-Analysis-of-Mexico-s-National-Program-2011-2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31175 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8707 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Latin America & Caribbean Mexico
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	DEFORESTATION ECOSYSTEM SERVICES LAND CONSERVATION SOCIAL CAPITAL REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY REDD CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
spellingShingle	DEFORESTATION ECOSYSTEM SERVICES LAND CONSERVATION SOCIAL CAPITAL REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY REDD CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M. Sims, Katharine R.E. Orozco-Olvera, Victor Hugo Costica, Laura Fernandez Medina, Jorge David Romo-Monroy, Sofia Pagiola, Stefano Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)
geographic_facet	Latin America & Caribbean Mexico
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8707
description	Environmental conditional cash transfers, or "payments for ecosystem services" are a centerpiece of global efforts to protect biodiversity, safeguard watersheds, and mitigate climate change by reducing forest loss. This paper evaluates the impacts of Mexico's national payments for ecosystem services program, which provides five years of payments to landowners in exchange for maintaining and managing natural land cover. Using a regression discontinuity design, the paper studies impacts on environmental, socioeconomic, and social capital outcomes for the 2011-14 program cohorts. The analysis finds that treated communities increased management activities to protect land cover, such as patrolling for illegal conversion or combatting soil erosion (by 48 percent compared to controls). The program reduced the loss of tree cover in areas at high risk of deforestation (by 29 percent compared to controls), with effects being larger for those that have been in the program the longest (38 percent compared to controls). These results are similar to estimates of impact for earlier program cohorts and continue to highlight the importance of targeting the program to areas of high risk of land cover loss to increase environmental effectiveness. The program continued to reach poor communities and households, but estimated impacts on household wealth indicators are small in magnitude and not statistically significant. These results indicate that community-level conditional payments did not harm household-level socioeconomic indicators, a key safeguard requirement of conservation policies of the United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation. The data also show that payments for ecosystem services significantly increased community social capital -- the institutions, attitudes, and values that govern human interactions -- (by 9 percent compared to controls), and these externally provided incentives did not crowd out household contributions to other community work.
format	Working Paper
author	Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M. Sims, Katharine R.E. Orozco-Olvera, Victor Hugo Costica, Laura Fernandez Medina, Jorge David Romo-Monroy, Sofia Pagiola, Stefano
author_facet	Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M. Sims, Katharine R.E. Orozco-Olvera, Victor Hugo Costica, Laura Fernandez Medina, Jorge David Romo-Monroy, Sofia Pagiola, Stefano
author_sort	Alix-Garcia, Jennifer M.
title	Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)
title_short	Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)
title_full	Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)
title_fullStr	Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)
title_full_unstemmed	Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)
title_sort	can environmental cash transfers reduce deforestation and improve social outcomes? a regression discontinuity analysis of mexico’s national program (2011-2014)
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2019
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/694951547752004287/Can-Environmental-Cash-Transfers-Reduce-Deforestation-and-Improve-Social-Outcomes-A-Regression-Discontinuity-Analysis-of-Mexico-s-National-Program-2011-2014 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31175
_version_	1764473715119095808

Can Environmental Cash Transfers Reduce Deforestation and Improve Social Outcomes? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Mexico’s National Program (2011-2014)

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