Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT) have recently gained attention as a promising instrument to provide incentives for nature conservation addressing public authorities. In parallel, both the EU and different European countries are exploring new mechanisms to mobilise funding to support...

In this paper we demonstrate how satellite images and other geographic data can be used to predict land use. A cross-section model of land use is estimated with data for a region in central Mexico. Parameters from the model are used to examine the effects of reduced human activity. If variables...

Agricultural expansion and intensification in Canada’s Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) have contributed to declining waterfowl populations since the 1970s. Although this region represents a mere 10% of North America’s waterfowl breeding habitat, it produces over 50% of the continent’s duck...

Economic valuation of biodiversity is generally carried out by applying revealed or stated preference approaches to determine people’s willingness to pay for small changes in management options. Studies on species preservation investigating passive or nonuse values typically rely on stated...

Ecological systems (ecosystems, for short) are complex systems of interacting species, plants and animals, where each of the species consists of individual organisms that interact with organisms of the same or other species in various ways: they compete for scare resources and they are involved...

Many studies examine the effect of environmental values on environmental behavior. In such empirical analyses it is typically at least implicitly assumed that environmental values are independent of economic preferences from behavioral economics like risk and time preferences, trust, or...

In a democratic system, policy makers have to take the preferences of the citizens into account. Since we live in a world with scarce resources, one is asked to make choices regarding the use and management of these resources. In this context, if policy makers decide to invest in the protection...

From the economic literature on the relationship between economic growth and environment pioneered by Grossman and Krueger (1991) and Shafik and Bandyopadhyay (1992) we first conduct a theoretical and critical reflection on the existence of a Kuznets curve for biodiversity. It appears that...

This paper empirically examines whether environmental values are correlated with economic preferences from behavioral economics and considers possible consequences when independence is assumed. The data for this analysis stem from a large-scale computer-based survey among more than 3700 German...

Im Rahmen der deutschen Energiewende gibt es auf lokaler und regionaler Ebene verschiedene Ansätze neue Formen der Energieversorgung zu etablieren und Energieeffizienz und Energieeinsparung zu fördern. Unklar ist, inwiefern diese Ansätze Ähnlichkeiten aufweisen und ggf. für die Erreichung...