The use of payment for environmental services (PES) is not a new type of contract, but PES programs have become more in vogue because of the potential for sequestering carbon by paying to prevent deforestation and degradation of forestlands. We provide a framework utilizing transaction costs to hypothesize which services are more likely to be provided effectively. We then interpret the literature on PES programs to see the extent to which transaction costs vary as predicted across the type of service and to assess the performance of PES programs. As predicted, we find that transaction costs are the least for club goods like water and greatest for pure public goods like carbon reduction. Actual performance is difficult to measure and varies across the examples. More work and experimentation are needed to gain a better outlook on what elements support effective delivery of environmental services.

中文翻译：

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环境服务付费：假设和证据

环境服务付费 (PES) 的使用并不是一种新型合同，但 PES 计划已经变得越来越流行，因为它有可能通过付费来防止森林砍伐和林地退化来封存碳。我们提供了一个利用交易成本的框架来假设哪些服务更有可能被有效地提供。然后我们解释有关 PES 计划的文献，以了解交易成本在不同服务类型中的预测变化程度，并评估 PES 计划的绩效。正如预测的那样，我们发现水等俱乐部物品的交易成本最低，而碳减排等纯公共物品的交易成本最高。实际性能难以衡量，并且因示例而异。