2015-10-12
The Objectives of this project are two folds. One is to establish the Spatial Equilibrium Model (SEM) for China’s domestic wood product markets that links domestic and international policy changes to demand, supply and trade of forest products in China. The other is to make forecast of forest products trade (including changes in demand, supply, imports and exports) in China, triggered by potential policy changes such as the ending of the “Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP)”, implementation of the “Collective Forest Tenure Reform” and “Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP)”. China’s policy makers and international community will be better informed with policy assessment tool like this.
2015-10-12
The overall goal of this research is to: (1) Evaluate the externality costs from transportation in terms of congestion and vehicle emissions (2) Analyze the factors that influence individual’s transportation mode choice (in vehicle time, out vehicle time, automobile ownership et al) (3) Analyze the vehicle factors that influence in individual’s vehicle purchase decision (price, fuel consumption, size et al)? We believe the case study of Beijing will yield insights more generally transferable to scholar and practitioner theories about the role of environmental policy instrument in reducing negative externality in the field of urban transportation.
2015-10-12
The goal of this project is to determine how parks and other conservation policies might affect local welfare. We are interested in wages, employment of agricultural and non-agricultural activities, infrastructure and poverty rates.
2015-10-12
This project develops a bio-economic model of sea turtle populations and egg/turtle harvest decisions as a basis for comparing across these various settings and approaches to sea turtle conservation and their impact on rural livelihoods.
2015-10-12
Our goal is to learn about the Costa Rican experience from the inside, working closely with FONAFIFO staff to understand how they have sought to improve efficiency and to explore options for setting payment levels and targeting to increase efficiency, without missing the myriad of norms, rules, and other obstacles that program managers might face in the implementation of, for example, procurement auctions.
2015-10-09
In this project we will investigate the effects of large-scale bioenergy production on land use, crop production, farm income, and for the environment over a 20-year horizon in China.
2015-10-09
This project aims at (1) Documenting the main urban transportation challenges in China, public policies in this field, and evaluating the effectiveness of these policies; (2) Improving the assessment of transportation externality costs in China (with a focus on Beijing) based on a large scale urban household survey and a proper estimation methodology; (3) Developing an analytical and empirical framework which links private automobile ownership and behavioural transportation modal choice to enhance the understanding of individual’s travel demand choice, automobile purchase and use decisions; (4) Building capacities in China based on quantative and qualitative assessments of decision-making process in transportation policies to reach a better understanding of alternative policy instruments for reducing negative externalities from urban transportation.
2015-10-09
The overall objective of the study is to provide the value of time estimates for automobile users on a congested road using a stated preference survey. The purpose of this study is to obtain the public preferences for time savings on a congested road, which we believe could provide important policy inputs for ongoing congestion pricing discussions in Beijing.
2015-10-09
In this project we set out to find data that policymakers need to decide whether to retain and replicate and refine their driving restriction programs: reliable estimates of the costs these programs impose on households and the incidence of these costs across socioeconomic strata.
2015-10-09
This study aims to promote cooperation in the maintenance of irrigation canals in vast rural areas of north-west China.
2015-10-08
The present study aims to fill these gaps by estimating the economic benefits to tourists associated with the PBAE award on Costa Rican beaches.
2015-10-08
Our hypothesis base on previous studies’ findings (see literature review section) suggest that so far PES are being assigned to big and relatively wealthy landowners, and that most landowners use the payment for investments within the property.
2015-10-08
The projects objective is to identify local capabilities, assets, and activities that characterizes the livelihoods of small scale fishers in Costa Rica. A special attention will be given on how different regulations (external and internal) defining who, where, when, what, and how to fish might affect these livelihoods and the natural resource base.
2015-10-08
In one of the major nesting beaches (La Flor), the Nicaraguan government has made an effort to enforce the prohibition to harvest by defining a protected area patrolled by governmental officers, and the army. However the effectiveness of this policy is questioned, particularly because of the difficulties to exclude people from turtle’s habitat, and the scarce governmental budgets dedicated to the enforcement of these regulations.
2015-03-27
The objectives of this field study are: (1) to implement a set of experiments to investigate the effect of the one-child policy on; (2) to collect data of peoples’ back-ground and in particular if they were born right before or right after the policy was implemented. By implementing this experiment, it is possible to estimate the effect of the policy in a set of preferences such as cooperativeness, risk attitudes and time consistency.
2015-03-23
This project about the congestion charge in Beijing is in three parts. Each part will look at different aspects of the congestion charge, one is on valuation of travel time, the other will analyse the effects of the congestion charge policy on different commuting modes and the experiment is on hypothetical bias and individuals stated preferences in transportation studies.
2015-03-20
We will to conduct a large study about different interest groups´ preferences for improving situation for coastal cod stocks in Western Sweden. The different interest groups included in our study are policy makers, commercial fishers, recreational anglers, and common citizens.
2015-03-20
This project is an attempt to better understand the effects of social networks on the diffusion and adoption of new technologies. In particular, we investigate if having friends or relative that had a chance to experience solar lanterns for their personal use increases an individual's willingness to pay for a solar lantern.
2015-03-20
In Kenya we are carrying out a series of water related projects. In one project we study the Nairobi Water Company that is considering a water tariff reform. Another study is on rural water source choice and the main objective of this research is to generate information that can inform the evolution of improved water management policies in Kenya.
2015-03-20
The project addresses the impact of climate change on the value of wildlife and welfare of ranchers. We use a panel Ricardian model to address specification challenges of single year cross sectional survey and unstable results due to repeated cross sectional surveys.
2015-03-20
Our focus in this project is on the interactions between multiple eco-services programs, e.g., between: two offsets programs aimed to lower costs for different eco-services; two payments programs to increase different eco-services; or one offsets program and one payments program that are each targeting a different eco-service.
2015-03-20
This research project will study if and how procedural fairness concerns affect coordination such as in the provision on threshold public goods. The provision of such goods can be modeled as a coordination game with several, non-pareto-rankable equilibria. Without any additional mechanisms, coordination on an efficient equilibrium has proven to be difficult: Who should contribute, and how much? For example, in the case where the contribution of one individual is enough to provide the public good: Who should be the volunteer?
2015-03-20
In this project, we implement carefully designed field experiments in urban Tanzania to investigate if poor households do overweigh low-probability events. We also investigate time preference behaviors of the same subjects.
2015-03-20
In this project, our research question is: What is the level of dishonesty in an anonymous natural field experiment and are norms activated that reduces the level of dishonesty from any of the two treatments? We conduct a natural field experiment and the subjects are Tanzanian farmers that were interviewed on farming activities and socio-economic conditions and participated in risk and time preference experiments.
2015-03-20
This project contributes to an effort to develop such a common framework, or meta-theoretical language, which can be used by scholars in a consistent fashion to facilitate such comparisons and subsequent generalization and theory-building.
2015-03-20
This project is designed to build on previous synthetic work at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. It involves a group of 14 scholars collaborating to conduct a meta-analysis of cases of large-scale environmental governance to examine whether common-pool resource theories can help to explain outcomes at large scales.
2015-03-20
The aim of this project is twofold. First, by testing the theory of strategic ignorance in real purchase decisions, we analyze whether the existing lab results are transferable to everyday decisions of consumers. Second, if evidence is found in favor of strategic ignorance, it can have important implications for environmental policy because it sheds light on the efficiency of information provision to consumers by using for example eco- labels and certifications.
2015-03-20
This project will analyze the gender differentiated effects (time allocation, resource access, income) of a large-scale REDD+ intervention in Burkina Faso and also feeding into the REDD+ policy process.
2015-03-20
The project includes two studies. One project is on possible differences in subjective and objective risks in four different zones with different malaria exposure, and whether a person´s subjective risk can explain his/her use of bed nets. The other is on the problem of resistance in malaria medication.
2015-03-06
Forest fragmentation threatens biodiversity because many species cannot survive in small, disconnected patches of habitat. Within the biodiversity hot spot of the Eastern Arc mountains, the East and West Usambara Mountains contain many species in a highly fragmented forest. Decades of bird population data demonstrate that the forest fragments will continue to lose bird species even
2015-03-06
Neoclassical microeconomic theory of the consumer postulates that a rational consumer maximizes utility subject to a budget constraint. The direct implication of this theory is that the source of the income does not affect consumption behavior.
2015-03-06
The adoption of new agricultural technologies is instrumental in the process of adaptation to climate change. Yet, in eastern Africa the adoption rate have been very small. Besides institutional explanations, the recent literature has pointed out at the role of impatience we explore the relative importance of this explanation vis-à-vis an alternative explanation based on sharing pressure within social networks. A combination of lab and field experiments will be used to address theses questions.
2015-03-06
In countries such as Tanzania, the vast majority of the rural population does not have access to basic household electricity. Could solar power serve as a substitute? We evaluate the socio-economic impact of distributing solar lights to households, with a particular emphasis on children's educational attainment.
2015-02-23
Various policies and programs aim to generate benefits to local people while conserving biodiversity or a particular species.
2015-02-23
The Costa Rican PSA Program is widely cited in discussions about REDD+, including as a reference on the costs of implementing PES and the challenges of generating additionality and livelihood co-benefits (poverty reduction). As such, it is critical to document and extract lessons from the variation in payment levels and targeting criteria employed by Costa Rica´s National Forestry Fund (F
2015-02-23
Reducing a country´s dependence on fossil fuels is central to mitigate climate change and to promote the use of cheaper energy sources. In Costa Rica most energy is generated using hydro-electrical plants, however the fact that energy consumption is lumped in peak hours forces the use of fossil fuel (mostly diesel and bunker) based electricity generation.
2014-06-03
Climate change in Ethiopia will not only increase rainfall variability and lead to more frequent droughts and higher risk of rain generated floods, it will also continue to intensify the degradation of soil fertility that causes agricultural productivity to decline. Adaptation measures that build upon improved water management and enhance soil fertility are fundamental in boosting overall resilience to climate change in the Blue Nile Basin.
2014-03-01
This project will use the tools of experimental economics to study behavioral issues related to both the protection of a common-pool resource from poaching by outsiders, and the enforcement of rules and norms to maintain compliance within a group. The experiments are motivated by the Chilean abalone (loco) fishery and will be conducted in the field with members of local artisanal fishing
2014-02-17
Understanding farmers’ responses to climate change is fundamental for the design of adaptation strategies in developing countries.
2014-02-17
The purpose of this project is to test a bargaining game developed by Saborio-Rodriguez, Kwasnica and Shortle (2013) using experiments in a laboratory. In the game an environmental agreement to deal with water pollution is negotiated among three players located along a river. Negotiation leads to social optimum reduction in emission accompanied by a set of monetary transfers.
2014-02-04
Beijing has notoriously severe air pollution and traffic congestion problems. Like many mega-cities in developing countries, it seeks to mitigate these problems by restricting vehicles from being driven one day per week based on the last digit of their license plate. Our project will use the contingent valuation method to estimate the cost this policy imposes on drivers.
2014-02-04
Funded by the Tinker Foundation and Rainforest Alliance, this three-year collaboration with the Mexican Environment Ministry aims to measure the effect of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) forest certification on illegal deforestation in Mexico.
2014-02-04
Funded by the Moore Foundation, this three-year project is a collaboration with The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
2013-12-30
Although groundwater depletion is a global phenomenon, India faces the challenge in its severest of forms. Studies by India’s Central Ground Water Board suggest that in some parts of the country, water tables are receding at 1 meter per year and that the majority of water resources in Northwest and South India are overexploited. Furthermore, two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people are involved in agricultural work and are therefore especially vulnerable to groundwater depletion and related climate fluctuations.
2013-12-26
Economic Modeling of Welfare Gains From Resource Recovery From Fecal Waste [with Jhih-Shyang Shih (Resources for the Future)]: Waterborne diseases from poor sanitation affect millions worldwide.
2013-12-26
Can irrigation mitigate the impacts of weather shocks on child health? Evidence from household-level irrigation adoption in India [with Eeshani Kandpal (World Bank Group) and Kathy Baylis (University of Illinois)]:
2013-12-04
This project uses an existing large survey dataset to study housing and transportation issues in Beijing. The study is conducted together with Josh Linn, Lunyu Xie, and Jintao Xu.
2013-12-04
Green growth in China: A literature Review. In the summer of 2013, Energy Foundation’s China Sustainable Energy Program (CSEP) awarded a grant to RFF to review the existing literature on green growth and to hold a green growth forum in China.
2013-11-28
This thematic program examines marine resource conservation. This multi-center collaborative project, the first within this thematic program, focuses on improving policy to promote coastal conservation through marine protected areas (MPAs) and related management tools. Because signatories of the Convention on Biological Diversity have committed to establishing MPAs on 10 percent of their coastal waters, a widespread expansion of these areas is underway worldwide.
2013-11-28
Despite the centrality of African parks and other protected areas to nature-based tourism, they capture only a fraction of its value. For this reason, national parks and other protected areas have mostly relied on fiscal transfers from the state to fund their conservation activities.