Ecosystem services auctions: the last decade of research

ReviewAuctions offer potential cost-effectiveness improvements over other mechanisms for payments for ecosystem services (PES) contract allocation. However, evidence-based guidance for matching design to application is scarce and research priorities are unclear. To take stock of the current state of the art, we conducted a systematic review and thematic content analysis of 56 peer-reviewed journal articles discussing ES auctions published in the last decade. Auctions were approached from three overlapping perspectives: mechanism design, PES, and policy analysis. Five major themes emerged: (1) performance, including measures like cost-effectiveness and PES criteria like additionality; (2) information dynamics like price discovery and communication effects; (3) design innovations like risk-integrating and spatially coordinated mechanisms; (4) contextual variables like policy context and cultural values; and (5) participation factors. Additional attention from policymakers and continued efforts to coordinate research in this diverse and interdisciplinary subfield may be beneficialinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

What information do citizens want? Evidence from one million information requests in Mexico

While scholars have emphasized the importance of information for accountability, little research has addressed the demand for government information by real citizens. We study the totality of information requests filed with Mexican federal government agencies from 2003 to 2015, over 1 million requests in all. We use unsupervised methods to categorize requests, revealing the diversity of topics including environment, security, budgets, and government procurement and employees. While many topics have clear public accountability-seeking purposes, others are focused on more private, micro-political goals. Analysis over time and across states reveals linkage between information demand and issues of public interest such as environmental impacts and criminal violence. Our results demonstrate that, given functioning access-to-information institutions, citizens in a transitional democracy really do demand information relevant to public accountability