Portugal has a unitary system in which the central government transfers funds to lower government levels for their public functions. In 2007, Portugal introduced Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT), where municipalities receive transfers for hosting Protected Areas (PA). We study whether...

Biodiversity loss is a serious global environmental problem. Economic instruments in biodiversity policies can contribute towards reconciling the conservation costs encountered at local level with the benefits of biodiversity conservation at higher levels of governance, from regional and...

A region of ecological importance which generates uncompensated cross-territorial positive spillovers has a comparatively higher fiscal need due to the direct and indirect costs it incurs for nature conservation. In order adequately to acknowledge fiscal needs relating to nature conservation, we...

Regions often consist of both urban, densely populated areas and rural, more remote areas. In contrast to the acknowledged socio-economic functions of urban agglomerations, rural and remote areas usually provide ecological services for society as a whole. A number of these ecological services...

Local conservation efforts are often related to benefits at higher governmental levels. On the one hand, these efforts are strongly connected to local land-use decisions. On the other hand, activities such as sustainable water management or biodiversity conservation are associated with regional,...