Fair institutions for sustainable agricultural landscapes: An empirical investigation of procedural equity in incentive-based policy instruments for the provision of ecosystem services

• Applicant: Dr. Lasse Loft
• Subject Area: Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 520623348

Incentive-based policy instruments, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) and Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), are at the forefront of global efforts to meet conservation and land use based emissions reduction goals. Given the distributional impacts of these instruments, other policy objectives such as equity, are often being addressed in the design and implementation of the instruments. Here, equity is an ethical objective, i.e. it is inherently morally right to include concerns of fairness in institutions that govern land use and the provision of ecosystem services. Further, equity is regarded as instrumental to the success of incentive-based policy instruments. While conceptual work on equity aspects in ecosystem services governance has advanced in the past years, sound empirical research is only slowly building up. Among the identified research needs is a greater emphasis on the equity dimensions of recognition and procedure, and the need of sound empirical studies on causal links between aspects of equity and conservation outcomes. Considering these gaps, the proposed research focuses on procedural equity, aiming to generate a better understanding about its importance in local level implementation of incentive-based policy instruments. The project will address three main research questions: Which elements of procedural equity are most relevant to addressees of incentive-based policies? How equitable are the decision-making processes perceived by local stakeholders? Does a procedure which is perceived as equitable encourage pro-environmental behaviour of land users? To answer these questions, the research will build on a mix of complementary qualitative and quantitative methods. The conceptualisation of procedural equity elements will be based on a structured review of scientific literature and complemented by empirical stocktaking. In this part of the research, as well as for the investigation of local stakeholders’ perceptions of equity will follow a qualitative empirical approach. The outcomes of the qualitative work will provide us with the essential information basis for designing and refining our quantitative research, that is a survey and the exogenously manipulated experimental investigation on causal effects between equity perceptions and pro-environmental behaviour and the interaction effects between procedural and distributional equity. The research will be carried out by the applicant and a doctoral researcher. The research will be conducted in Vietnam using the national Payments for Forest Ecosystem Services scheme as case study. Besides the scientific community, the anticipated research results are highly relevant for the science-policy-practice interface. The results may help in improving equity, cost-effectiveness and environmental effectiveness of incentive-based policy instruments, in particular PES and REDD+ programs around the globe.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Meike Wollni