Alló, M, Loureiro, M, Iglesias, E. (2015) “Farmers' Preferences and Social Capital Regarding Agri-environmental Schemes to Protect Birds” Journal of Agricultural Economics, DOI:10.1111/1477-9552.12104.

Abstract
 
The steady decline of birds living in cereal steppe lands is a worrying situation that the European Common Agricultural Policy is attempting to remedy through the application of agri-environmental schemes (AES). We assess farmers' preferences towards these AES, which call for a number of environmental practices to protect birds. Using a face-to-face survey in farming communities in Aragón (Spain), and through the estimation of an Ordered Logit model (OL), we assess the ranking of AES attributes, and obtain their economic valuation according to the farmers' preferences. We find that social factors are also important in determining farmers' decisions. In particular, the importance of social trust and expectation of compliance by other neighbours, encourage farmers to sign up to AES. These and other results may be used to design more effective AES and help to solve this important biodiversity problem.