Research

Current research projects:

What happens when payments stop? Collective resource management under the rise and fall of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) (2017-2020, PI Tanya Hayes & Co-PI Felipe Murtinho, Funded by NSF)

This new project will continue exploring the impacts of a payment for conservation program in Ecuador (see project below). On June 2017, we were awarded another 3 year grant from the National Science Foundation. The goal of the new research project is to examine the extent to which the payments for conservation policy model prompts conservation behavior and communal resource management arrangements that endure, even when payments stop.

Job opportunities: 2019 student research assistants

Influence of Economic Incentives on Common-Property Forest Management in Ecuador (2012-2015, PI Tanya Hayes, Co-PI Felipe Murtinho & Hendrik Wolf, Funded by NSF)

The project examines the impacts of an Ecuadorian payment for forest and grasslands conservation program implemented on common-property lands. The research focuses on the Andean region of Ecuador, and uses institutional analysis, quantitative modeling and spatial analysis (GIS) to empirically test if and how the system of payments and contracts impacts rural and indigenous communities’ decision to (1) participate in high-altitude grasslands conservation agreements, (2) change their land-use rules, and ultimately, (3) change land-use behaviors and the resultant conservation outcomes.

See our publications on: World Development, Ecological Economics and Environmental Management.