Framing Payments for Ecosystem Services: A Survey Experiment on Conservation Perceptions and Preferred Government Action in Rural Uganda

Last registered on August 20, 2026

Pre-Trial

General Information

Title

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0019356

Initial registration date

August 11, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

August 20, 2026, 8:34 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

Uganda

Region

Primary Investigator

Name

David Sungho Park

Affiliation

KDI School of Public Policy and Management

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Maria Moz-Christofoletti

PI Affiliation

United Nations Development Programme

Contact Investigator

PI Name

Michell Dong

PI Affiliation

Green Climate Fund

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

Completed

Start date

2024-10-01

End date

2024-11-02

Keywords

Agriculture, Environment & Energy, Governance

Additional Keywords

payments for ecosystem services, wetland conservation, information provision, policy preferences, motivation crowding, climate adaptation

JEL code(s)

Q57; Q58; D83; O13; H41; Q23

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

Governments and international funders increasingly consider payments for ecosystem services (PES) as a mechanism for sustaining conservation gains, yet there is little experimental evidence on how the framing of a prospective PES scheme shapes what citizens expect and demand from their government. We embed a four-arm information-provision experiment in the endline household survey of a wetland-restoration and climate-adaptation program implemented by the Government of Uganda with support from the Green Climate Fund and the United Nations Development Programme, whose mid-term review recommended integrating PES into a successor phase. Approximately 1,600 respondents in sixteen wetland systems across eight districts of Eastern and Southwestern Uganda are randomly assigned to hear one of four short scripts about a prospective wetland-conservation program: a neutral description, an environmental framing emphasizing biodiversity and ecosystem services, a long-term economic framing emphasizing durable community gains, and a direct-payment framing describing a PES scheme funded by an international organization. We then measure comprehension, trust, perceived importance and benefits of conservation, willingness to vacate wetland areas and to join alternative-livelihood programs, perceived effectiveness of government policy, and the respondent's single most-preferred type of government action for wetland conservation. We plan to examine heterogeneity along dimensions such as household wetland dependence and respondent gender.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Dong, Michell, Maria Moz-Christofoletti and David Sungho Park. 2026. "Framing Payments for Ecosystem Services: A Survey Experiment on Conservation Perceptions and Preferred Government Action in Rural Uganda." AEA RCT Registry. August 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.19356-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

At the end of the endline household questionnaire, after the modules on demographics, assets, income, expenditures, agriculture, wetland use, and food security, enumerators administer a roughly ten-minute survey-experiment module. Each respondent is randomly assigned to one of four groups and read the corresponding short script verbatim. The four arms are:
1. Neutral message (control): a generic description of the wetland-conservation program and its aim of protecting wetlands for future generations, with no specific framing of benefits.
2. Environmental framing: emphasizes the ecological benefits of wetlands, such as habitat for plants and animals, water purification, and flood control.
3. Long-term economic framing: emphasizes durable economic benefits to the community from conservation, such as improved soil fertility, higher crop yields, and opportunities for sustainable tourism.
4. Direct-payment (PES) framing: describes a payment-for-ecosystem-services scheme under consideration by an international organization, in which community members who protect wetlands would receive financial compensation.
Immediately after the script, respondents answer the same battery of outcome questions in all arms.

Intervention (Hidden)

Intervention Start Date

2024-10-01

Intervention End Date

2024-11-02

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

(i) preferred type of government action for wetland conservation, elicited as a single forced choice among five options (financial compensation for leaving wetlands; training and inputs for alternative livelihoods; stronger enforcement of environmental protection laws; investment in community infrastructure supporting sustainable wetland use; awareness and education campaigns)
(ii) perceived effectiveness of government policies in protecting wetlands

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

The preferred-action item is analyzed as indicators for each of the five options; because the options partition the choice set, treatment effects capture the reallocation of preferred government action across options. These indicators constitute the primary outcome family for multiple-hypothesis-testing adjustment. Perceived effectiveness of government policy is measured on a five-point scale.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

- trust in the wetland-conservation project
- perceived importance of wetland conservation
- perceived environmental benefits of conservation
- perceived economic benefits of conservation
- willingness to vacate wetland areas
- willingness to participate in alternative-livelihood programs

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

These perception items are measured on five-point scales and complement the primary policy-preference outcomes.

Experimental Design

The experiment is embedded as a short module at the end of the endline household survey of a wetland-restoration and climate-adaptation program in Uganda, fielded in October 2024 under the Learning-Oriented Real-Time Impact Assessment (LORTA) programme. The survey covers a panel of approximately 1,600 households in sixteen wetland systems (six villages per system) across eight districts of Eastern and Southwestern Uganda, first interviewed at baseline in October 2022. After completing the main household questionnaire, each respondent is randomly assigned with equal probability to one of the four message arms, hears the corresponding script read verbatim by the enumerator, and answers the same battery of outcome questions.

The three treatment scripts hold the underlying conservation program constant and vary only the framing of its benefits (environmental, long-term economic, or direct payment), so pairwise comparisons against the neutral arm identify the effect of each framing on perceptions and on preferred government action. We will estimate intention-to-treat effects by OLS, comparing each treatment arm to the neutral control, with heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors; a second specification adds pre-treatment household controls drawn from survey modules administered before the experimental script. We plan to adjust inference within the primary outcome family for multiple hypothesis testing and to examine heterogeneity along dimensions such as household wetland dependence and respondent gender.

Experimental Design Details

Randomization Method

Random assignment by a pre-loaded draw within the computer-assisted survey instrument, with equal probability across the four arms.

Randomization Unit

Individual (survey respondent).

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

Approximately 1,600 respondents (randomization is at the individual level, so clusters equal individuals).

Sample size: planned number of observations

Approximately 1,600 respondents.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Approximately 400 respondents per arm (four arms of roughly equal size: neutral control, environmental, long-term economic, direct payment).

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

With approximately 400 respondents per arm, 80% power, and a 5% two-sided test, the minimum detectable effect for a pairwise comparison of one treatment arm against the neutral control is approximately 0.20 standard deviations, or roughly 10 percentage points for a binary outcome with a control mean near 0.5.

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB