《ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS》| Li et al：非正式制度与草原保护:来自中国牧区的经验证据

摘要：草地持续退化造成了严重的生态系统服务功能损失和不可持续的放牧生产。以往的研究已经确定了正式的环境机构或政策对草原保护的影响。但很少有证据表明非正式机构的有效性。本研究以乡村基层治理作为非正式制度的代理变量，通过实证分析非正式制度对草地质量改善的影响。结果表明，非正式治理的存在导致草地质量的改善。此外，我们发现当非正式治理以书面形式出现，并对违反进行惩罚时，这些积极影响更显著。进一步的研究发现，村落规模、村民收入、政府保护项目的户级补偿和草原产权私有化是非正式治理有效性的中介。研究结果为非正式机构在自然资源管理中发挥的积极作用提供了新的见解，并将有助于现有的草原保护政策的改进。

关键词：非正式制度；农村基层治理；草原质量；草原利用；牧区；中国

Abstract: Grassland has experienced continuous degradation, resulting in serious ecosystem services loss and unsustainable grazing production. Previous studies have identified the impact of formal environmental institutions or policies on grassland protection. But, little evidence of the effectiveness of informal institutions has been found. Using village grassroots governance as a proxy for informal institutions, this study empirically identifies the effects of informal institutions on grassland quality improvement. Results show that the presence of informal governance leads to improvement in grassland quality. Moreover, these positive effects are found to be more significant when informal governance is in a written form and penalties occur as a consequence of violations. Further in-vestigations reveal that the effectiveness of informal governance is mediated by village size, villager income, household-level compensation from government conservation programs, and grassland property right privati-sation. The findings offer new insights into the positive role played by informal institutions in natural resource management and would assist existing policy instruments in grassland protection.

Key words:Informal institution；Village grassroots governance；Grassland quality；Grassland utilization；Pastoral area；China

《ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS》，最新影响因子为4.482，刊载方向为环境科学、生态学、资源环境经济学等。该杂志致力于扩展和整合对“自然的家庭”(生态系统)和“人类的家庭”(经济)之间的界面和相互作用的理解。生态经济学是一个跨学科的领域，定义为一系列具体的问题或挑战，这些问题或挑战与管理经济活动有关，以促进人类福祉、可持续性和正义。

原文链接：https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921001683

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