Electoral Cycles and In-Kind Transfers for Ecosystem Services : A Survey Experiment in Rural Mindoro

This short note presents a survey experiment in the natural resource-rich Philippine province of Occidental Mindoro. The objective is to investigate the effect of electoral cycles and payment type on people’s opinions about a hypothetical, state-led payment for ecosystem services program (PES). We show there is greater tendency for respondents to believe that the program implementation will be “unfair” if it occurs before the elections rather than the treatment scenario where it is ex-post. The timing of ecosystem-related transfer programs ex-ante elections has a stronger effect among migrants than native residents. The use of in-kind rather than monetary payment can significantly reduce this negative perception