Payments for environmental service (PES) programs have been increasingly promulgated worldwide recently to secure broader environmental benefits and provide financial assistance to environmental custodians. This study highlights the incentive design of PES and ecosystem providers' behavioral responses using a standard principal-agent model. Based on a theoretical model characterized by a screening game, I establish a hypothesis that as long as the PES conditionality is implemented and enforced effectively, ecosystem service (ES) providers more likely to participate in the scheme perform better in terms of environmental resource conservation. An empirical analysis in this study uncovers heterogeneous treatment effects in favor of the ES providers whose propensity scores for scheme participation are relatively high. This result lends strong support to the hypothesis that the strict conditionality embedded in the PES scheme dissuades potential participants at a high risk of noncompliance from participating the program, which helps enhance the PES additionality.

最近，世界范围内越来越多地颁布了环境服务付费 (PES) 计划，以确保获得更广泛的环境效益并为环境监护人提供财政援助。本研究使用标准委托代理模型强调了 PES 和生态系统提供者的行为反应的激励设计。基于以筛选博弈为特征的理论模型，我建立了一个假设，即只要 PES 条件性得到有效实施和执行，更有可能参与该计划的生态系统服务 (ES) 提供者在环境资源保护方面表现更好。本研究中的一项实证分析揭示了有利于计划参与倾向得分相对较高的 ES 提供者的异质治疗效果。