Conference Agenda

Crop insurance is one of the most important tools that farmers have to protect themselves against climate-related risks. Yet, despite being heavily subsidized, insurance uptake in France remains extremely low. The goal of this paper is twofold ; first, we explain this paradox by analyzing the heterogeneous benefits and adverse effects of taking up crop insurance, and second, we provide concrete policy recommendations to increase insurance uptake in a welfare-maximizing way. Using an original micro-level panel of 17 000 French farmers over 20 years, we first use a moments-based regression to identify the local average effects (LATE) of insurance on expected revenues and variance, before investigating the factors that might cause heterogeneity in these effects, both observables through interaction terms and unobservables through a marginal treatment effect design. We conclude that insurance subsidies have very little impact on crop insurance demand, especially for those who would benefit the most, and suggest other less costly and more efficient ways to increase insurance uptake such as information campaigns.

State decentralization is often promoted as a way to improve public service delivery. However, its effects on forests are ambiguous. Decentralization might not only improve local forest governance, but also change the incentives to promote agricultural expansion into forests. This study focuses on the power devolution stemming from the proliferation of new administrative units in Indonesia during the last two decades. The discontinuous changes in government responsibilities at new administrative borders provide exogenous spatial variation to study forest outcomes. Using a spatial boundary discontinuity design with 14,000 Indonesian villages, we analyze the effects of 115 district splits between 2002 and 2014. Results show a 35% deforestation decline within new (child) districts relative to the existing (mother) districts both immediately before and after the splitting. In pre-split years, these changes can be explained by agricultural divestment by the mother districts on territories that are soon to be lost. In post-split years, the short-term forest conservation benefits are neither rooted in an increased social cohesion nor stronger development. Instead, newly formed districts seem to be temporarily suffering from administrative incapacity to attract large-scale agricultural investments. In the long run, no lasting local forest conservation benefits persist as deforestation equalizes between child and mother districts a few years later.

The Peasant Reserve Zone (ZRC) in Colombia represents a pioneering institutional model that seamlessly integrates collective governance with private property ownership over agricultural lands proximate to ecologically sensitive areas. This innovative governance structure plays a crucial role in the management of shared resources and conservation efforts. Investigating and comprehending the ZRC is of major importance as it addresses a fundamental question within the realm of commons literature: 'How do individuals within dynamic and intricate social-ecological settings respond to institutional regulations and impact ecological systems?' (Ostrom and Nagendra, 2006). While previous studies have explored the impact of state and collective property ownership on deforestation, there remains a notable void in the literature regarding the contribution of private property ownership within a framework of collective governance to the preservation of common resources. In this paper, we analyze the ZRC's effectiveness in mitigating deforestation using processed satellite imagery and a spatial regression discontinuity approach. Our findings reveal that the establishment of three ZRCs in the late 1990s led to a 2.2% reduction in the probability of deforestation.

Given the current context of water scarcity and climatic change, achieving a balance between water supply and demand will prove challenging without the implementation of supply-side measures. An alternative, nature-based solution to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events and ensure a more stable and reliable water supply for both ecosystems and human communities is forest management. Well-managed forests act as natural water reservoirs, storing and regulating freshwater flows that gradually replenish groundwater reserves and maintain river flows during dry periods. Yet, albeit these benefits are widely recognized, the relationship between forest management and improved water supply within economic decision support models remains largely underexplored. This paper intends to cover this gap and combines an eco-hydrological model with an environmentally-extended Input Output model for the Spanish economy to assess the economic benefits of increased water discharges resulting from forestry practices in three different catchments located in Mediterranean mid-mountain areas under different scenarios of future climate and socioeconomic change, namely the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. The results show that the examined forest management interventions are cost-efficient strategies for the delivery of watershed services and the generation of positive economic outcomes, although with noticeable differences among basins, policies, and climate and socioeconomic scenarios.