Institutional Embeddedness of Local Willingness to Pay for Environmental Services: Evidence From Matiguás, Nicaragua

The concept of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) has gained increasing popularity in the conservation literature as it offers the potential to reconcile opposing social and ecological objectives by paying land owners for the positive environmental externalities they generate on their land. Based on extensive fieldwork in Matiguás, Nicaragua, this paper aims to complement the literature on locally-financed PES schemes in agricultural watersheds. Using both qualitative and quantitative research approaches, it inquires into the under-researched demand-side potential by assessing local willingness to pay (WTP) for water and watershed services in an upstream-downstream setting. Our results show a significant WTP for improved water services and a clear local consciousness about upstream-downstream interdependencies, suggesting potential for a ‘Coasean’ water-related PES scheme. Contrary to expectations, the feasibility of such a locally-financed PES system is however undermined by prevailing local perceptions of agricultural externalities and entitlements, questioning the fairness of such payments. Also low levels of mutual trust seem to undermine the credibility of the PES framework. The viability and acceptance of locally-financed PES mechanisms will thus also depend on the prior social production of cognitive synergies and improved collective action.Payments for Environmental Services; Watershed; Willingness to pay; Fairness; Externalities; Institutions

A Blockchain-Based Reward Mechanism for Mobile Crowdsensing

Mobile crowdsensing (MCS) is a novel sensing scenario of cyber-physical-social systems. MCS has been widely adopted in smart cities, personal health care, and environment monitor areas. MCS applications recruit participants to obtain sensory data from the target area by allocating reward to them. Reward mechanisms are crucial in stimulating participants to join and provide sensory data. However, while the MCS applications execute the reward mechanisms, sensory data and personal private information can be in great danger because of malicious task initiators/participants and hackers. This article proposes a novel blockchain-based MCS framework that preserves privacy and secures both the sensing process and the incentive mechanism by leveraging the emergent blockchain technology. Moreover, to provide a fair incentive mechanism, this article has considered an MCS scenario as a sensory data market, where the market separates the participants into two categories: monthly-pay participants and instant-pay participants. By analyzing two different kinds of participants and the task initiator, this article proposes an incentive mechanism aided by a three-stage Stackelberg game. Through theoretical analysis and simulation, the evaluation addresses two aspects: the reward mechanism and the performance of the blockchain-based MCS. The proposed reward mechanism achieves up to a 10% improvement of the task initiator's utility compared with a traditional Stackelberg game. It can also maintain the required market share for monthly-pay participants while achieving sustainable sensory data provision. The evaluation of the blockchain-based MCS shows that the latency increases in a tolerable manner as the number of participants grows. Finally, this article discusses the future challenges of blockchain-based MCS

Access to Social Benefits: Reducing Non-Take-Up

[Excerpt] Many people do not receive the social benefits to which they are entitled. Benefit systems differ considerably among EU Member States, but such ‘non-take-up’ (or ‘non-give-out’) seems to be common across the EU. This study investigates the extent of non-take-up and seeks to explain it. It further explores how non-take-up can be addressed, presenting case studies from 10 Member States: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Romania, Slovakia and the UK. The focus is on non-take-up of monetary social benefits that support people in vulnerable situations, including minimum income, housing, health, old-age, heating, child, unemployment, disability and care benefits. The study takes the magnitude and entitlement criteria of the benefits as a given, determined by governments

Access and allocation arrangements for the Commercial \u27Wetline\u27 Fisheries. Proposals for discussion.

The Minister for Fisheries established this review of open access (wetline) commercial fishery arrangements to provide a more effective management framework for wetline fishing and to complement the recreational initiatives. This must involve the removal of excess fishing capacity, including latent effort, from the fishery and the establishment of a dedicated commercial fishery with clear entry criteria and an appropriate limit on catch in each bioregion. However it must be made clear that the ‘wetline review’ is not a sectoral resource sharing exercise. Following the implementation of new management arrangements for the ‘wetline’ fisheries, the appropriateness of the existing levels of use between the various user groups in the West Coast region will be examined under the new integrated fisheries initiative

International Cooperation for the Conservation and Sustainable and Fair Use of Biodiversity

This thesis contributes to the modelling of intergovernmental cooperation for global biodiversity conservation and analyses multilateral cooperation on the genetic resource market. The inter- and transdisciplinary research consists of game theoretic modelling, economic analyses, the study of political and legal documents, as well as the conduct of expert interviews. The game theoretic biodiversity conservation model developed in this thesis considers countries that are heterogeneous in ecosystems and wealth. The ecosystems are characterised by imperfect ecosystem substitutability as well as an ecosystem resilience threshold and provide local as well as global benefits. One of the main findings of the numerical appraisal is that cooperation improves upon the conservation share in the Nash equilibrium and optimal transfers facilitate a large stable coalition. Moreover, it is evinced that established ‘per-member partition functions’ are currently not applicable to the biodiversity conservation game. Based on expert interview results and technical feasibility and political economy considerations, an alternative benefit-sharing rule is derived. It is shown how this rule can be incorporated into the standard game-theoretic framework once countries have gained sufficient information to form expectations about biodiversity benefits. The main finding on multilateral cooperation on the market for physical genetic resources is that eco-regional cooperation and, even more so, a comprehensive global mechanism have the potential to significantly reduce transaction costs for both supplying countries and customers. They can thereby decrease prices for customers and increase demand, conservation levels and providers’ benefits. A case study of the Andean Community’s joint access legislation shows that the member countries realise few of their potential cooperation advantages. Collusion on the physical genetic resource market will not lead to high benefits as market power is limited by substitutes in form of ex-situ resources and freely available genetic information. The economically preferable instrument of a comprehensive global mechanism, in turn, is politically not feasible any time soon due to path dependencies and an arguably narrow understanding of national sovereignty.Diese Dissertation erweitert bestehende Ansätze zur Modellierung von zwischenstaatlicher Kooperation für den globalen Biodiversitätsschutz und analysiert multilaterale Kooperation auf dem Markt für genetische Ressourcen. Die inter- und transdisziplinäre Forschung beruht auf spieltheoretischen Methoden, ökonomischen Analysen, der Auswertung politischer und juristischer Dokumente sowie der Durchführung von Experteninterviews. Das in dieser Dissertation entwickelte spieltheoretische Biodiversitätsschutz-Modell berücksichtigt Länder, die heterogen in Ökosystemen und Wohlstand sind. Die Ökosysteme sind durch imperfekte Substituierbarkeit sowie Resilienzschwellen charakterisiert und stiften lokalen wie auch globalen Nutzen. Eines der zentralen Ergebnisse der numerischen Abschätzung ist, dass Kooperation zu einer Verbesserung des Schutzniveaus im Vergleich zum Nash-Gleichgewicht führt und optimale Transferzahlungen eine große stabile Koalition begünstigen. Außerdem zeigt sich, dass etablierte `per-member partition functions' (spieltheoretisch begründete Ausgleichszahlungen) zurzeit nicht auf das Biodiversitätsschutz- Spiel anwendbar sind. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen der Experteninterviews und unter Berücksichtigung der technischen Realisierbarkeit sowie polit-ökonomischer Erwägungen wird ein alternativer Bestimmungsfaktor für den Vorteilsausgleich entwickelt. Dabei wird herausgearbeitet, wie diese Verteilungsregel in den spieltheoretischen Standardmodellrahmen integriert werden kann, sobald die Länder ausreichende Kenntnisse erworben haben, um den Nutzen der Biodiversität zu bewerten. Das Hauptergebnis zu multilateraler Kooperation auf dem Markt für physische genetische Ressourcen ist, dass ökoregionale Kooperation und vor allem ein umfassender globaler Mechanismus das Potential haben, die Transaktionskosten sowohl für Anbieterländer als auch Nutzer signifikant zu verringern. Dadurch können sich die Preise für die Nutzer reduzieren und die Nachfrage, das Schutzniveau und die Gewinne der Anbieterländer erhöhen. In einer Fallstudie zur Andengemeinschaft wird aufgezeigt, dass die Mitgliedsländer wenige ihrer potenziellen Kooperationsvorteile realisieren. Kollusion auf dem Markt für physische genetische Ressourcen wird keine hohen Gewinne erzielen, da die Marktmacht durch Substitute in Form von Exsitu Ressourcen und frei erhältlicher genetischer Information limitiert ist. Das aus ökonomischer Sicht vorzuziehende Instrument eines umfassenden globalen Mechanismus wiederum ist politisch in absehbarer Zeit aufgrund von Pfadabhängigkeiten und einem wohl engen Verständnis nationaler Souveränität nicht durchsetzbar

Overview of Infrastructure Charging, part 4, IMPROVERAIL Project Deliverable 9, “Improved Data Background to Support Current and Future Infrastructure Charging Systems”

Improverail aims are to further support the establishment of railway infrastructure management in accordance with Directive 91/440, as well as the new railway infrastructure directives, by developing the necessary tools for modelling the management of railway infrastructure; by evaluating improved methods for capacity and resources management, which allow the improvement of the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) calculating methods, including elements related to vehicle - infrastructure interaction and external costs; and by improving data background in support of charging for use of railway infrastructure. To achieve these objectives, Improverail is organised along 8 workpackages, with specific objectives, responding to the requirements of the task 2.2.1/10 of the 2nd call made in the 5th RTD Framework Programme in December 1999.This part is the task 7.1 (Review of infrastructure charging systems) to the workpackage 7 (Analysis of the relation between infrastructure cost variation and diversity of infrastructure charging systems).Before explaining the economic characteristics of railway and his basic pricing principles, authors must specify the objectives of railways infrastructure charging.principle of pricing ; rail infrastructure charging ; public service obligation ; rail charging practice ; Europe ; Improverail

Proposed management arrangements for the West Coast Commercial \u27wetline\u27 fishery. A discussion paper.

The ‘Wetline Review’ was established to implement an effective management framework for the commercial sector to complement the recreational initiatives. It must be stressed at the outset that this review is focussed on the take of scalefish by the commercial sector. The levels of use between the various user groups in the West Coast region will be examined under the new integrated fisheries initiative following the implementation of new management arrangements for scalefish taken by the commercial sector