Tropical forests may contribute to the well-being of local people by providing a form of ``natural insurance.’ ’ We draw on microeconomic theory to conceptualize a model relating agricultural risks to collection of non-timber forest products. Forest collection trips are positively correlated...

Payments for environmental services (PES) are popular despite little empirical evidence of their effectiveness. We estimate the impact of PES on forest cover in a region known for exemplary implementation of one of the best-known and longest-lived PES programs. Our evaluation design combines...

This paper evaluates public investments in forest-based microenterprises as part of an integrated conservation and development project (ICDP) in the Brazilian Amazon. We combine matching with regression to quantify the effects of program participation on household income, wealth, and...

We offer a nationwide analysis of the initial years of Costa Rica’s PSA program, which pioneered environmental-services payments and inspired similar initiatives. Our estimates of this program’s impact on deforestation, between 1997 and 2000, range from zero to one-fifth of 1% per year...

We examine theoretically the emergence of participatory co-management agreements that share between state and user the management of resources and the benefits from use. Going beyond user-user interactions, our state-user model addresses a critical question-when will co-management arise?-in...

Royalty structure has been linked to deforestation through non-sustainable harvesting and high grading. Yet royalties are an important rent generation mechanism for governments. In this paper, a dynamic model of government policy choice is used to compare different royalty systems with respect...

We extend existing stand-level models of forest landowner behavior in the presence of fire risk to include the level and timing of fuel management activities. These activities reduce losses if a stand ignites. Based on simulations, we find the standard result that fire risk reduces the optimal...

A model of mineland restoration is presented to show the wedge between mine operator and social planner decisions and social costs of current instruments. We find, first, mine operator efforts may not match socially optimal levels and consequently generate relatively high social costs, second,...

This paper uses a multinomial discrete choice model and data from the Philippines to examine migrant choice between alternative destinations. Travel costs and perceived opportunities at the upland frontier are more important than general (upland plus lowland) destination attributes that indicate...

This paper models landowner behavior on timberland subject to damage by fire. We examine how management decisions by adjacent landowners yield outcomes that diverge from the social optimum, and consider how this divergence depends on landowner preferences and information. We conduct a numerical...