Questionnaire about opportunity costs and auctions in Sunan County.

<p>Questionnaire about opportunity costs and auctions in Sunan County.</p

Green Auctions and Reduction of Information Rents in Payments for Environmental Services: An Experimental Investigation in Sunan County, Northwestern China

<div><p>Reducing information rents is an important task for government agencies wishing to purchase maximal environmental services with limited budgets. This paper reports on several green auction options for reducing information rents and improving the performance of the “Grain for Green” Payments for environmental services (PES) program implemented in northwestern China. In r experimental auctions and investigations, door-to-door interviews were conducted and bidding envelopes and survey questionnaires were used to determine the offers and the foregone profits of the participants. Three scenarios are analyzed in this paper: a uniform price auction, a discriminatory price auction, and an opportunity-cost system. The results show that compared to the uniform price auction system, the other auction systems can increase the cost-effectiveness of conservation contracting. Competitive bidding can reveal true opportunity costs and can reduce information rents extracted from the government by farmers using private information. The demographics and average bids of these auction types were also analyzed. “Perfect information” in the opportunity-cost offer system has the best performance but is very hard to implement in reality. The results of this research show that the auction is a valuable tool for purchasing conservation contracts in northwestern China, but that in the future, the performance of these auctions should be studied with relaxed model assumptions.</p></div

Characteristics of the PES program under different payment schemes.

<p>Characteristics of the PES program under different payment schemes.</p

Line chart of the auction bids and opportunity costs for participating in the PES in Sunan County.

<p>Line chart of the auction bids and opportunity costs for participating in the PES in Sunan County.</p

The performance of optimal bid according the model under different uncertainties.

<p>The performance of optimal bid according the model under different uncertainties.</p

The estimated results of linear regression.

<p>The estimated results of linear regression.</p

The principle of reducing information rents in the discriminatory price auction system.

<p>The principle of reducing information rents in the discriminatory price auction system.</p

Line chart of opportunity costs for participating in the PES in Sunan County.

<p>Near the lower opportunity cost, the slope of this line is less than that near the higher opportunity cost.</p

The maximum and the minimum accepted prices under different uncertainties.

<p>The maximum and the minimum accepted prices under different uncertainties.</p

Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Antifungal Agent Sch 38516

Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Antifungal Agent Sch 3851