Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) has gained international attention over the past decade, as manifested in both United Nations policy discussions and hundreds of ...voluntary projects launched to earn carbon-offset credits. There are ongoing discussions about whether and how projects should be integrated into national climate change mitigation efforts under the Paris Agreement. One consideration is whether these projects have generated additional impacts over and above national policies and other measures. To help inform these discussions, we compare the crediting baselines established ex-ante by voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon to counterfactuals constructed ex-post based on the quasi-experimental synthetic control method. We find that the crediting baselines assume consistently higher deforestation than counterfactual forest loss in synthetic control sites. This gap is partially due to decreased deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon during the early implementation phase of the REDD+ projects considered here. This suggests that forest carbon finance must strike a balance between controlling conservation investment risk and ensuring the environmental integrity of carbon emission offsets. Relatedly, our results point to the need to better align project- and national-level carbon accounting.
This study contributes by investigating the association between scale, technique, and composition effects on energy consumption by considering financial development, oil prices and globalization as ...potential determinants of economic growth and energy consumption. We have applied recent cointegration considering cross‐sectional dependence and structural breaks introduced by Westerlund and Edgerton, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2008, 70, 665–704. Furthermore, FMOLS, DOLS and Cup‐FMOLS are applied to examine impact of scale effect, technique effect, composition effect, financial development, oil prices and economic globalization on energy consumption. The empirical results show that variables are cointegrated for long run relationship. Scale effect and technique effect are negatively and positively linked with energy consumption. Composition effect and economic globalization stimulate energy consumption. Contrarily, financial development and oil prices decline energy consumption. This empirical analysis helps policy makers of developing economies in designing their comprehensive environmental policy for sustainable economic development in long‐run.
This study estimates the value of forest ecosystem services provided by a protected area in a biodiversity hotspot in India. It also addresses some of the shortcomings identified in existing ...literature by estimating the value of several intangible benefits, and disservices of forests ignored in most valuation studies, as well as the added value from intact forests as compared to from alternative landscapes. Using primary and secondary data, and economic valuation techniques the study shows that the total net benefits provided by the Nagarhole national park in Karnataka, India are considerable. The added value of benefits from the park is also higher as compared to from alternative landscapes considering just three ecosystem services. If these are factored in decision making it could strengthen the economic case for conserving forests in tropical countries such as India where there is immense pressure to divert forests for meeting development needs.
•Estimates forest ecosystem services values of a protected area in a biodiversity hotspot.•Total net value of benefits provided by Nagarhole national park in India ranges US$ 13–148 million per annum.•Per ha annual net benefits from the park ranges US$ 203–2294.•Added value of benefits from conserving the park are higher as compared to that from alternative landscapes.
The association of anaemia with intestinal schistosomiasis and hookworm infections are poorly explored in populations that are not limited to children or pregnant women.
We sampled 1,832 individuals ...aged 5-90 years from 30 communities in Mayuge District, Uganda. Demographic, village, and parasitological data were collected. Infection risk factors were compared in ordinal logistic regressions. Anaemia and infection intensities were analyzed in multilevel models, and population attributable fractions were estimated.
Household and village-level predictors of Schistosoma mansoni and hookworm were opposite in direction or significant for single infections. S. mansoni was found primarily in children, whereas hookworm was prevalent amongst the elderly. Anaemia was more prevalent in individuals with S. mansoni and increased by 2.86 fold (p-value<0.001) with heavy S. mansoni infection intensity. Individuals with heavy hookworm were 1.65 times (p-value = 0.008) more likely to have anaemia than uninfected participants. Amongst individuals with heavy S. mansoni infection intensity, 32.0% (p-value<0.001) of anaemia could be attributed to S. mansoni. For people with heavy hookworm infections, 23.7% (p-value = 0.002) of anaemia could be attributed to hookworm. A greater fraction of anaemia (24.9%, p-value = 0.002) was attributable to heavy hookworm infections in adults (excluding pregnant women) as opposed to heavy hookworm infections in school-aged children and pregnant women (20.2%, p-value = 0.001).
Community-based surveys captured anaemia in children and adults affected by S. mansoni and hookworm infections. For areas endemic with schistosomiasis or hookworm infections, WHO guidelines should include adults for treatment in helminth control programmes.
The incorporation of an agglomeration bonus payment to encourage spatial coordination in auction mechanisms to allocate payments for ecosystem services (PES) contracts has been explored as a ...promising innovation that could enhance the effectiveness of PES schemes. Empirical evidence on the performance of this particular design feature is scant, and almost exclusively derived from laboratory experiments using student subjects. This study reports results from a framed field experimental auction allocating PES contracts with and without agglomeration bonus payments using actual forest land owners in rural China as subjects. We find tentative evidence that, in a PES auction that provides agglomeration bonuses, subjects tend to bid less in anticipation of receiving bonus payments when their neighbours are also successful in the auction. In addition, we have mixed findings as to whether the agglomeration bonus is able to induce a bidding pattern in favour of contiguous conservation. The two sets of results convey some encouraging signals of the theoretically postulated cost-effectiveness and conservation efficacy of the agglomeration bonus. Further research from the actual field is warranted in light of the policy significance of this innovative incentive mechanism.
Background. Repeated mass drug administration (MDA) with preventive chemotherapies is the mainstay of morbidity control for schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths, yet the World Health ...Organization recently reported that less than one-third of individuals who required preventive chemotherapies received treatment. Methods. Coverage of community-directed treatment with praziquantel (PZQ) and albendazole (ALB) was analyzed in 17 villages of Mayuge District, Uganda. National drug registers, household questionnaires, and parasitological surveys were collected to track 935 individuals before and after MDA. Multilevel logistic regressions, including household and village effects, were specified with a comprehensive set of socioeconomic and parasitological variables. The factors predicting who did not receive PZQ and ALB from community medicine distributors were identified. Results. Drug receipt was correlated among members within a household, and nonrecipients of PZQ or ALB were profiled by household-level socioeconomic factors. Individuals were less likely to receive either PZQ or ALB if they had a Muslim household head or low home quality, belonged to the minority tribe, or had settled for more years in their village. Untreated individuals were also more likely to belong to households that did not purify drinking water, had no home latrine, and had no members who were part of the village government. Conclusions. The findings demonstrate how to locate and target individuals who are not treated in MDA. Infection risk factors were not informative. In particular, age, gender, and occupation were unable to identify non-recipients, although World Health Organization guidelines rely on these factors. Individuals of low socioeconomic status, minority religions, and minority tribes can be targeted to expand MDA coverage.
Information, behaviors, and technologies spread when people interact. Understanding these interactions is critical for achieving the greatest diffusion of public interventions. Yet, little is known ...about the performance of starting points (seed nodes) for diffusion. We track routine mass drug administration-the large-scale distribution of deworming drugs-in Uganda. We observe friendship networks, socioeconomic factors, and treatment delivery outcomes for 16,357 individuals in 3491 households of 17 rural villages. Each village has two community medicine distributors (CMDs), who are the seed nodes and responsible for administering treatments. Here, we show that CMDs with tightly knit (clustered) friendship connections achieve the greatest reach and speed of treatment coverage. Importantly, we demonstrate that clustering predicts diffusion through social networks when spreading relies on contact with seed nodes while centrality is unrelated to diffusion. Clustering should be considered when selecting seed nodes for large-scale treatment campaigns.
We use a field experiment in Sierra Leone to examine how the identity of the manager influences rent seeking and performance in participatory development projects. Specifically, we vary the ...composition of a committee responsible for implementing a development project—local elites or randomly selected villagers. The design is unique in that it permits us to explore the effectiveness of two alternative local governance modalities and the extent of elite capture in community projects. We find little evidence that local elites capture project resources. We do observe they are better managers of development projects. Improved performance covaries with a proxy for power of the local chief.
Data and the online appendix are available at
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2866
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This paper was accepted by Teck-Hua Ho, behavioral economics.
Over 1.9 billion individuals require preventive chemotherapy through mass drug administration (MDA). Community-directed MDA relies on volunteer community medicine distributors (CMDs) and their ...achievement of high coverage and compliance. Yet, it is unknown if village social networks influence effective MDA implementation by CMDs. In Mayuge District, Uganda, census-style surveys were conducted for 16,357 individuals from 3,491 households in 17 villages. Praziquantel, albendazole, and ivermectin were administered for one month in community-directed MDA to treat Schistosoma mansoni, hookworm, and lymphatic filariasis. Self-reported treatment outcomes, socioeconomic characteristics, friendship networks, and health advice networks were collected. We investigated systematically missed coverage and noncompliance. Coverage was defined as an eligible person being offered at least one drug by CMDs; compliance included ingesting at least one of the offered drugs. These outcomes were analyzed as a two-stage process using a Heckman selection model. To further assess if MDA through CMDs was working as intended, we examined the probability of accurate drug administration of 1) praziquantel, 2) both albendazole and ivermectin, and 3) all drugs. This analysis was conducted using bivariate Probit regression. Four indicators from each social network were examined: degree, betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, and the presence of a direct connection to CMDs. All models accounted for nested household and village standard errors. CMDs were more likely to offer medicines, and to accurately administer the drugs as trained by the national control programme, to individuals with high friendship degree (many connections) and high friendship closeness centrality (households that were only a short number of steps away from all other households in the network). Though high (88.59%), additional compliance was associated with directly trusting CMDs for health advice. Effective treatment provision requires addressing CMD biases towards influential, well-embedded individuals in friendship networks and utilizing health advice networks to increase village trust in CMDs.
•Evaluation of mass drug administration implementation using social networks.•Evidence of social biases and status-seeking from community medicine distributors.•Coverage and compliance with mass drug administration for 16,357 individuals.•Impact of friendship and health advice networks on treatment probability.•Overlap of network status and formal social status in rural villages.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to many European countries imposing lockdown measures and limiting people’s movement during spring 2020. During the summer 2020, these strict lockdown measures were ...gradually lifted while in autumn 2020, local restrictions started to be re-introduced as a second wave emerged. After initial restrictions on visitors accessing many Nature Protected Areas (PAs) in Europe, management authorities have had to introduce measures so that all users can safely visit these protected landscapes. In this paper, we examine the challenges that emerged due to COVID-19 for PAs and their deeper causes. By considering the impact on and response of 14 popular European National and Nature Parks, we propose tentative longer-term solutions going beyond the current short-term measures that have been implemented. The most important challenges identified in our study were overcrowding, a new profile of visitors, problematic behavior, and conflicts between different user groups. A number of new measures have been introduced to tackle these challenges including information campaigns, traffic management, and establishing one-way systems on trail paths. However, measures to safeguard public health are often in conflict with other PA management measures aiming to minimize disturbance of wildlife and ecosystems. We highlight three areas in which management of PAs can learn from the experience of this pandemic: managing visitor numbers in order to avoid overcrowding through careful spatial planning, introducing educational campaigns, particularly targeting a new profile of visitors, and promoting sustainable tourism models, which do not rely on large visitor numbers.
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