1. How do people want to pay for ecosystem services? LEI Nico Polman, Arianne de Blaeij en Vincent Linderhof 2008

2. Objective Research questions: How do people with a preference for landscape improvements want to pay for these improvements? And subsequently. What are the explanatory factors of the preference for a specific payment vehicle? What is the preferred institutional mechanism, according to the population?

3. Approach  Review of the international literature on institutional economies and valuation methods: The focus of the review is the institutional arrangements for paying for ecosystem services.  Choice experiment on the payment for ecosytem services: the payment vehicle for ecosystem system and landscape services is included as an attribute.

4. Scientific relevance  To compare different types of institutional arrangements or governance structures for paying for ecosystem services  To provide new insights into consumer preferences for payment vehicles  What payment vehicle for ecosystem system and landscape services is preferred?

5. (Inter)national position  The combination of theories and methods makes the project unique.  The project links the field of New Institutional Economics approaches to governance of eco-system services  Another link is established to valuation methods.  Within SELS the project can be linked to “Payment systems for ecological services” of Gerdien Meijerink (PhD-project)

6. Planned deliverables  Report on the literature review addressing the institutional arrangements for paying for ecosytem services and valuation methods.  A conference paper/scientific article based on the literature review.  The design of questionnaire for the choice experiment. (The actual choice experiment is due in 2009)