Incentivizing and Tendering Conservation Contracts: The Trade-off between Participation and Effort Provision
通过实验室实验研究土地所有者对激励和招标保护合同的反应，发现将支付与不确定的环境结果挂钩会提高个人努力但降低参与率，从而产生权衡，环境结果在中等激励水平时最大，成本效益在100%时最优。
This paper uses lab experiments to investigate landholder responses to, and the resulting outcome performance of, programs that incentivize and tender conservation contracts. Assuming environmental outcome monitoring is costless, we find that increasing the share of payment linked to uncertain environmental outcomes raises the level of individual stewardship effort but reduces participation, thereby creating a trade-off. This leads to a second trade-off: environmental outcome is maximized at some intermediate level of contract incentivization, but cost-effectiveness at 100%. Tendering such contracts can yield additional benefits in terms of both environmental outcome and cost-effectiveness. However, these benefits decline rapidly with rising incentivization. <i></i>