PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Siikamäki, Juha
AU  - Layton, David F.
TI  - Potential Cost-Effectiveness of Incentive Payment Programs for the Protection of Non-Industrial Private Forests
AID  - 10.3368/le.83.4.539
DP  - 2007 Nov 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 539--560
VI  - 83
IP  - 4
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/83/4/539.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/83/4/539.full
SO  - Land Econ2007 Nov 01; 83
AB  - This study assesses the potential cost-effectiveness of incentive payment programs relative to traditional, top-down regulatory programs for biological conservation. We develop site-level estimates of the opportunity cost and non-monetized biological benefits of protecting biodiversity hotspots in Finnish non-industrial private forests. We then use these estimates to contrast and compare the cost-effectiveness of alternative conservation programs. Our results suggest that incentive payment programs, which tacitly capitalize on landowners’ private knowledge about the opportunity costs of conservation, may be considerably more cost-effective than traditional, top-down regulatory programs. (JEL Q23)