EFE Seminar – Yohei MITANI (Kyoto University)

Event details :

Seminar “Environment, Forestry, Energy”

The Choice Architect Meets PES Design
Non-pecuniary Interventions for Spatially Coordinated Conservation Actions

Authors: Yohei Mitani, Hideki Shimada, Gorm Kipperberg

Abstract:

How can the choice architecture toolkit be utilized to improve policy design for conservation? We investigate several combinations of tools that encourage landowners to take spatially coordinated conservation actions in payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes.  We propose a choice architecture that combines a simple behavioral intervention with the design of a scheme mechanism to make existing social incentives salient for spatially coordinated participation.  In particular, we ask whether combining a minimum participation requirement (MPR) at the local community level with information about pre-existing participation improves a spatially coordinated conservation effort compared to a conventional design. Based on a survey experiment with forest owners, we find that the proposed choice architecture is associated with a 65% increase in ZIP code-level agglomeration and an 11% increase in participation. This result implies that even a modest increase in participation can significantly impact ecosystem fragmentation. We also investigate the underlying mechanism of the non-pecuniary interventions. A discrete choice model accounting for social interactions reveals that the combined intervention boosts the conformity of individual behavior to that of local peers. Local clustering of participation, enhanced through increased unity, facilitates substantial improvements in spatially coordinated conservation efforts. Overall, our analysis suggests that introducing an MPR to the smallest administrative unit while nudging about pre-existing participants can substantially improve the cost-effectiveness of PES schemes.

Keywords: payment for ecosystem services, spatial coordination, minimum participation requirement, choice architecture, non-pecuniary interventions, peer effect