Forest Conservation and Slippage: Evidence from Mexico's National Payments for Ecosystem Services Program
Incentive-based programs to reduce deforestation are expected to play an increasinglyimportant role in global efforts to protect ecosystems and sequester carbon but theirenvironmental effectiveness is not clear. We investigate program effectiveness and slippage in the context of Mexico's national payments for hydrological services program, which pays private and communal landowners to maintain forest cover on enrolled lands. To measure program impacts, we use matched controls drawn from the program applicant pool to establish counterfactual deforestation rates in the absence of payments.