| The first chapter analyzes whether monetary incentives modify cooperative behavior in activities that have been traditionally uncompensated. In particular, it evaluates whether Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) change cooperation in Mexican common property communities. The analysis explores households' cooperation in forest conservation activities, which for a long time have been done without compensation and are increasingly incentivized under PES. It also explores cooperation in non-forest community activities that remain uncompensated. Findings indicate that cash incentives increase cooperation in activities that are compensated and that the framing of the incentive plays an important role in explaining cooperation in activities that remain uncompensated. Lump-sum transfers without work conditionalities can be more effective than conditional payments to promote cooperation in settings with sanctions for deviant behavior and visible actions. The second chapter simultaneously evaluates the impacts of PES on both avoided deforestation and poverty reduction. For this, it evaluates land cover and wealth impacts of a federal PES program in Mexico. Panel data for program beneficiaries and rejected applicants helps to control for fixed differences and time trends affecting both groups. Findings indicate that the program reduces the expected loss of land cover by 40-51 percent without negatively affecting household wealth. Environmental gains are higher where poverty is low while household gains are higher where deforestation risk is low, illustrating the difficulty of meeting multiple policy goals with one single policy instrument. The third chapter looks at the impacts of increasing female political representation on public policy choices and welfare outcomes. By exploiting the pre-determined position of women in the list of candidates for municipal councilors in Bolivia, together with small margins of difference in the number of votes political parties get, this study uses an innovative regression discontinuity design that is relevant for systems of proportional representation. Findings indicate that women councillors devote more resources to social investments. In particular, they prioritize education, health, and environmental protection giving less attention to infrastructure investments. The impacts of female representation appear only some years after the elections and there is weak evidence on the links between changes in public policy choices and final outcomes. |
