Table 7.
Estimated heterogeneous impacts of the Grassland Ecological Compensation Program (GECP) on grassland quality: household level.
| (1) | (2) | (3) | (4) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heterogeneous variables | By per-capita grassland area | By local grassroots measures (yes = 1, no = 0) | By formal monitoring system (yes = 1, no = 0) | By non-pastoral wage |
| Log (payment intensity (yuan/ha) (c1) | 0.037*** | 0.008 | 0.008 | 0.013* |
| (0.000) | (0.215) | (0.158) | (0.077) | |
| Interaction term (c2) | 0.016** | 0.009** | 0.006*** | 0.0006 |
| (0.000) | (0.047) | (0.010) | (0.762) | |
| H0: c1 + c2 = 0 | - | 0.017** | 0.014** | - |
| Number of observations | 3,093 | 3,110 | 3,110 | 3,110 |
| R2 | 0.959 | 0.959 | 0.960 | 0.958 |
Note. This table provides the results for heterogeneous effects of GECP on grassland quality using household-level data (Eq. (5)). The dependent variable is NDVI in log form. NDVI stands for the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, which is a measure for grassland quality. It was constructed based on infrared and near-infrared channel remote sensing images and has been widely used as an indicator of vegetation coverage. Both household and year-fixed effects are controlled for. Household-, village-, and township-level time-variant variables also are controlled for. Household-level controls include the quantity of labor used in raising livestock, operated farm size, share of the joint operated area, the total number of different plots, a dummy variable for grassland harvesting, and a dummy variable for planting crop/fodder. Village-level controls include an indicator of whether a village has local grassroots measures in place to limit grazing intensity, an indicator of whether a village has a formal government-run monitoring system and climate variables (cumulative rainfall and mean temperature from May to October in each year). Township-level controls include farm-gate livestock prices, hay prices, wages for non-pastoral employment, and grassland rental prices. Standard errors are clustered at the village-by-year level. A two-sided t test is performed for each coefficient. The exact p-values are in parentheses. *p < 0.10, **p < 0.05, ***p < 0.01.