When are payments for environmental services beneficial to the poor?

David Zilberman, Leslie Lipper and Nancy McCarthy

No 289063, ESA Working Papers from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA)

Abstract: The impact of payment for environmental services (PES) on poverty varies. Generally, PES is good for landowners and may negatively affect consumers if food demand is inelastic. Impacts also depend on the correlation between poverty and environmental amenities. If the richer farmers also provide the best environmental services (ES), then the poor farmers may lose. If there is negative correlation between ES and productivity, then the poorer landowners may gain from ES. The distribution of land matters. If smallholders depend on earnings from work on larger farms, then PES may affect them negatively. Program specifications also matter. Working land programs may have better distributional effects then PES for land diversion.

Keywords: Environmental Economics and Policy; Agricultural Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-04-05
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Working Paper: When are Payments for Environmental Services Beneficial to the Poor? (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:faoaes:289063

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.289063

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