Using environmental knowledge brokers to promote deep green agri-environment measures

Paolo Melindi-Ghidi, Tom Dedeurwaerdere and Giorgio Fabbri

Ecological Economics, 2020, vol. 176, issue C

Abstract: Intermediary organisations have increasingly played a role in payments for agri-environment services across Europe over the last two decades. However, the economics literature has so far not examined the impact of this new governance mechanism on environmental protection and on individuals' behaviour. We develop a new theoretical economic framework to compare an incentive mechanism using intermediaries, such as environmental knowledge brokers and information providers, with a standard central governance mechanism, in terms of environmental impact. We show that the emergence of knowledge intermediaries is particularly effective where farmers initially have low environmental awareness, or when the public institution organising the scheme is insufficiently aware of individuals' characteristics. Our findings provide theoretical support for previous empirical results on payment schemes for agri-environment measures.

Keywords: Knowledge brokers; Intermediaries; Non-profit organisations; Pro-environmental culture; Agri-environment measures; Cultural transmission; Principal-agent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q51 Q58 Z19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919314867
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Using Environmental Knowledge Brokers to Promote Deep Green Agri-environment Measures (2020)
Working Paper: Using environmental knowledge brokers to promote deep green agri-environment measures (2020)
Working Paper: Using Environmental Knowledge Brokers to Promote Deep Green Agri-environment Measures (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:176:y:2020:i:c:s0921800919314867

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106722

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().