IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/saea13/143030.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Applying a Voluntary Incentive Mechanism to the Problem of Groundwater Conservation: An Experimental Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Wright, Andrew P.
  • Hudson, Darren

Abstract

This paper uses experimental methods to examine how individuals react to a set of voluntary incentives related to the conservation of a resource. The goal was to determine whether conservation over a critical area, such as a deep portion of an aquifer, could be encouraged, and whether coordination between individuals could be induced. Participants were faced with a bidding process through which units were selected for conservation, and some participants were offered an agglomeration bonus for conserving units that shared a border. Examining how bids changed across rounds revealed the existence of a learning process; implying that a similar real-world program would need to provide a large amount of information up front in order to achieve the desired effect. Using a monetary selection constraint resulted in more units placed in conservation. The bonus did not necessarily encourage conservation at the critical area, but it did reduce participant’s bid amounts.

Suggested Citation

  • Wright, Andrew P. & Hudson, Darren, 2013. "Applying a Voluntary Incentive Mechanism to the Problem of Groundwater Conservation: An Experimental Approach," 2013 Annual Meeting, February 2-5, 2013, Orlando, Florida 143030, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:saea13:143030
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.143030
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/143030/files/Andrew%20Wright%20SAEA%202013.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.143030?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Smith, Rodney B. W. & Shogren, Jason F., 2002. "Voluntary Incentive Design for Endangered Species Protection," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 169-187, March.
    2. David Zilberman, 1996. "The Economics of a Public Fund for Environmental Amenities: A Study of CRP Contracts," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(4), pages 961-971.
    3. Buller, Virginia & Hudson, Darren, 2006. "The Impacts of Alternative Institutions on Distributional and Environmental Efficiency in Environmental Programs," 2006 Annual Meeting, February 5-8, 2006, Orlando, Florida 35423, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    4. Feather, Peter & Hellerstein, Daniel & Hansen, LeRoy T., 1999. "Economic Valuation of Environmental Benefits and the Targeting of Conservation Programs: The Case of the CRP," Agricultural Economic Reports 34027, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    5. Parkhurst, Gregory M. & Shogren, Jason F. & Bastian, Chris & Kivi, Paul & Donner, Jennifer & Smith, Rodney B. W., 2002. "Agglomeration bonus: an incentive mechanism to reunite fragmented habitat for biodiversity conservation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 305-328, May.
    6. Babcock, Bruce A. & Lakshminarayan, P. G. & Wu, JunJie & Zilberman, David, 1996. "Economics of a Public Fund for Environmental Amenities (The)," Staff General Research Papers Archive 1065, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hongli Feng & Catherine L. Kling & Lyubov A. Kurkalova & Silvia Secchi & Philip W. Gassman, 2005. "The Conservation Reserve Program in the Presence of a Working Land Alternative: Implications for Environmental Quality, Program Participation, and Income Transfer," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1231-1238.
    2. Yang, Wanhong & Isik, Murat, 2003. "Integrating Farmer Decision-Making to Target Land Retirement Programs," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22062, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Cattaneo, Andrea & Bucholtz, Shawn & Dewbre, Joe & Nickerson, Cynthia J., 2002. "The Crp Balancing Act: Trading Off Costs And Multiple Environmental Benefits," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19810, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Ruiqing Miao & Hongli Feng & David A. Hennessy & Xiaodong Du, 2014. "Assessing Cost-Effectiveness of the Conservation Reserve Program and its Interaction with Crop Insurance Subsidies," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 14-wp553, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    5. Mykel R. Taylor & Nathan P. Hendricks & Gabriel S. Sampson & Dillon Garr, 2021. "The Opportunity Cost of the Conservation Reserve Program: A Kansas Land Example," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(2), pages 849-865, June.
    6. Pengfei Liu, 2021. "Balancing Cost Effectiveness and Incentive Properties in Conservation Auctions: Experimental Evidence from Three Multi-award Reverse Auction Mechanisms," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(3), pages 417-451, March.
    7. Khanna, Madhu & Yang, Wanhong & Farnsworth, Richard L. & Onal, Hayri, 2002. "Evaluating The Cost Effectiveness Of Land Retirement Programs," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19740, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    8. Xue Xie & Hualin Xie & Cheng Shu & Qing Wu & Hua Lu, 2017. "Estimation of Ecological Compensation Standards for Fallow Heavy Metal-Polluted Farmland in China Based on Farmer Willingness to Accept," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-18, October.
    9. Feng, Hongli & Kling, Catherine L. & Kurkalova, Lyubov A. & Secchi, Silvia, 2007. "Cac Versus Incentive-Based Instruments in Agriculture: The Case of the Conservation Reserve Program," Staff General Research Papers Archive 10796, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    10. Baylis, Kathy & Peplow, Stephen & Rausser, Gordon & Simon, Leo, 2008. "Agri-environmental policies in the EU and United States: A comparison," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 753-764, May.
    11. Claassen, Roger & Cattaneo, Andrea & Johansson, Robert, 2008. "Cost-effective design of agri-environmental payment programs: U.S. experience in theory and practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 737-752, May.
    12. Zilberman, David & Segerson, Kathleen, 2012. "Top Ten Design Elements to Achieve More Efficient Conservation Programs," C-FARE Reports 156623, Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (C-FARE).
    13. Wu, JunJie & Zilberman, David & Babcock, Bruce A., 2001. "Environmental and Distributional Impacts of Conservation Targeting Strategies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 333-350, May.
    14. Soh, Moonwon & Cho, Seong-Hoon & Yu, Edward & Boyer, Christopher & English, Burton, 2018. "Targeting Payments for Ecosystem Services Given Ecological and Economic Objectives," 2018 Annual Meeting, February 2-6, 2018, Jacksonville, Florida 266502, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    15. Yang, Wanhong & Khanna, Madhu & Farnsworth, Richard & Onal, Hayri, 2003. "Integrating economic, environmental and GIS modeling to target cost effective land retirement in multiple watersheds," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 249-267, September.
    16. Jens Leth Hougaard & Kurt Nielsen & Athanasios Papakonstantinou, 2012. "A Simple Multi-attribute Yardstick Auction Without Prior Scoring," MSAP Working Paper Series 02_2012, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    17. Cho, Seong-Hoon & Soh, Moonwon & English, Burton C. & Yu, T. Edward & Boyer, Christopher N., 2019. "Targeting payments for forest carbon sequestration given ecological and economic objectives," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 214-226.
    18. Wanhong Yang & Madhu Khanna & Richard Farnsworth & Hayri Önal, 2005. "Is Geographical Targeting Cost-Effective? The Case of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program in Illinois," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 27(1), pages 70-88.
    19. Phillip Hone & Geoff Edwards & lain Fraser, 1999. "Agricultural Land Retirement and Biodiversity Policy," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 6(3), pages 211-224.
    20. Whitten, Stuart M., 2017. "Designing and implementing conservation tender metrics: Twelve core considerations," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 561-571.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Economics and Policy; Resource /Energy Economics and Policy;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:saea13:143030. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/saeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.