The on-going degradation of global public goods such as biodiversity and climate regulation due to the loss of natural tropical ecosystems has generated demand for evidence on the effectiveness of alternative policy instruments for environmental conservation. Economists initially responded with...

A critical issue in the design of incentive mechanisms is the choice of whom to target. For forests, the leading rules are (1) target locations with high ecosystem-service density; (2) target additionality, i.e., locations where conservation would not occur without the incentive; and, (3) at...

An increasing number of policies condition transfers upon the taking of socially desired actions − such as donating blood, departing conflict or mitigating climate change. Many such incentives are targeted, i.e., they exclude individuals based on potential recipients' characteristics or...