Papers by Alexander Pfaff
Social Science Research Network, 1998
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Oct 17, 2022
Forest Policy and Economics, Nov 1, 2021
Abstract As programs with payments for ecosystem services (PES) have become more numerous, raisin... more Abstract As programs with payments for ecosystem services (PES) have become more numerous, raising the need for and also the opportunity for rigorous evidence on their contributions, we examine shifts within Costa Rica's Pagos por Servicios Ambientales (PSA) program. The PSA was heralded from its initiation, despite demonstrations of low early impacts. We study shifts in impact over time across early periods and whether further adjustments could raise contributions. Looking over time, we find that PSA contracts signed for the 2000–2005 period had higher impacts than contracts for the program's initial time period, 1997–1999 found in previous research. Looking over space, we find that PSA payments have higher impacts for lower slopes and lower market distances. Linking these results, the rise in impact for 2000–2005 occurred alongside a shift in the targeting of PSA, which was along ecological dimensions (limiting effects of owners offering unprofitable lands). Yet the spatial variations in impacts we document suggest that explicitly targeting impact offers the potential to further raise PES impacts in Costa Rica, as well as in other nations.
Science Advances, Apr 5, 2019
World Development, Nov 1, 2021
Abstract Globally, small-scale gold mining (SSGM) is an important economic option for many rural ... more Abstract Globally, small-scale gold mining (SSGM) is an important economic option for many rural poor. It involves local uses of shared resources, like common-pool contexts for which self-governance has avoided ‘tragedies of the commons’. Yet even ideal local governance of SSGM is not societally efficient given non-local damages that suggest external interventions for desired shifts. Because transactions costs are high for rewarding reductions in damages on remote mining frontiers, states could gain if rewards based on low-cost, group compliance measures could successfully induce cooperation in response to policy. However, as group-level rewards invite free-riding, such success requires local collective action. Since that guarantees neither efficient coordination nor equitable distributions of net benefits from compliance, we consider the impacts of emergent leaders on local responses to external policy. We employ framed lab experiments with 200 small-scale gold miners in Colombia's Pacific to explore leaders’ impacts on equity and efficiency in collective responses to external incentives. Allowing communication before individual choice, which raises efficiency but not always equity, we can identify emergent leaders of groups’ communications. Leaders raise compliance and affect how its costs are distributed, suggesting access to leadership roles matters.
Environmental and Resource Economics, Nov 23, 2015
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2019
Díaz, Sandra, Settele, Josef, Brondízio, Eduardo, Ngo, Hien T., Guèze, Maximilien, Agard, John, A... more Díaz, Sandra, Settele, Josef, Brondízio, Eduardo, Ngo, Hien T., Guèze, Maximilien, Agard, John, Arneth, Almut, Balvanera, Patricia, Brauman, Kate, Butchart, Stuart, Chan, Kai, Garibaldi, Lucas, Ichii, Kazuhito, Liu, Jianguo, Subramanian, Suneetha Mazhenchery, Midgley, Guy, Miloslavich, Patricia, Molnár, Zsolt, Obura, David, Pfaff, Alexander, Polasky, Stephen, Purvis, Andy, Razzaque, Jona, Reyers, Belinda, Roy, Rinku, Shin, Yunne-Jai, Hamakers, Ingrid Visseren-, Willis, Katherine, Zayas, Cynthia (2019): Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services - unedited advance version. Bonn: IPBES, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.2671522, URL: https://www.ipbes.net/sites/default/files/downloads/summary_for_policymakers_ipbes_global_assessment.pdf The designations employed and the presentation of material on the maps used in the present report do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform ...
Encyclopedia of Energy, Natural Resource, and Environmental Economics, 2013
National and international efforts to reduce loss of tropical forests, while having some impacts,... more National and international efforts to reduce loss of tropical forests, while having some impacts, have largely failed to substantially slow the rates of loss from deforestation and forest degradation that reduce species habitat while accounting for 12–17% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. To wit, within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, negotiators are actively considering ways to provide incentives for tropical forest conservation and thus carbon storage plus other service co-benefits. Policy effectiveness, efficiency, and equity can increase if we learn lessons from the past about what drives and what inhibits deforestation and degradation, understanding what has worked or not, and the reasons.
Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 2017
This study considers potential policy responses to the still very high levels of exposure to arse... more This study considers potential policy responses to the still very high levels of exposure to arsenic (As) caused by drinking water from shallow tubewells in rural Bangladesh. It examines a survey of 4,109 households in 76 villages of Araihazar upazila conducted two years after a national testing campaign swept through the area. The area is adjacent to the region where a long-term study was initiated in 2000 and where households are periodically reminded of health risks associated with well-water elevated in As. Results confirm that testing spurs switching away from unsafe wells, although the 27% fraction who switched was only about half of that in the long-term study area. By village, the fraction of households that switched varied with the availability of safe wells and the distance from the long-term study area. Lacking follow-up testing, two years only after the campaign 21% of households did not know the status of their well and 21% of households with an unsafe well that switche...
Social Science Research Network, 2010
Conservation Letters, 2015
This document contains the draft Chapter 2.1 of the IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and E... more This document contains the draft Chapter 2.1 of the IPBES Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Governments and all observers at IPBES-7had access to these draft chapters eight weeks prior to IPBES-7. Governments accepted the Chapters at IPBES-7 based on the understanding that revisions made to the SPM during the Plenary, as a result of the dialogue between Governments and scientists, would be reflected in the final Chapters.
There is reason to believe that index insurance could stimulate rural development. For insurance ... more There is reason to believe that index insurance could stimulate rural development. For insurance markets to function well and be sustainable, however, it is important that farmers understand how they operate well enough to be able to make informed decisions about whether or not to purchase insurance, and to trust that choice even if it seems, ex post, to have been a waste of money. Concerns about a lack of understanding go in two directions. The first is that farmers will forego the choice to purchase insurance, and will fail to realize the benefits that it offers. The second is that farmers will purchase insurance that is not right for them, and thus be harmed by having done so.
ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center Datasets
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 2017
Spillovers can significantly reduce or enhance the net effects of land-use policies, yet there ex... more Spillovers can significantly reduce or enhance the net effects of land-use policies, yet there exists little rigorous evidence concerning their magnitudes. We examine how Costa Rica’s national parks affect deforestation in nearby areas. We find that average deforestation spillovers are not significant in 0–5 km and 5–10 km rings around the parks. However, this average blends multiple effects that are significant and that vary in magnitude across the landscape, yielding varied net impacts. We distinguish the locations with different net spillovers by their distances to roads and park entrances—both of which are of economic importance, given critical local roles for transport costs and tourism. We find large and statistically significant leakage close to roads but far from park entrances, which are areas with high agricultural returns and less influenced by tourism. We do not find leakage far from roads (lower agriculture returns) or close to park entrances (higher tourism returns). Finally, parks facing greater threats of deforestation show greater leakage.
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Papers by Alexander Pfaff