Replication package: Dataset and stata-do-file for analysis in "Introducing and Terminating Monetary Incentives in Non-Regenerating Forests: Insights from a Framed Field Experiment"

This dataset was used for the analysis in "Introducing and Terminating Monetary Incentives in Non-Regenerating Forests: Insights from a Framed Field Experiment". The data was collected in Namibia in 2017 as part of the SASSCAL research project by Nils Christian Hoenow as a member of the Chair for Development and Cooperative Economics at the University of Marburg. Funded by the Southern African Science Service Center for Climate Change and Adaptive Land-UseManagement (SASSCAL) through the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Grant No. 01LG1201B).     Article Title: Introducing and Terminating Monetary Incentives in  Non-Regenerating Forests: Insights from a Framed Field Experiment Authors: Nils Christian Hoenow*, Gunther Bensch*, Michael Kirk** Affiliation: *RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research, Essen, Germany and & **School of Business and Economics, University ofMarburg, Marburg, Germany     Abstract In regions with low soil fertility, smallholder farmers often clear forest to sustain agricultural yields. This pattern becomes more problematic where forest regrowth is slow, contributing to local forest loss and global environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity decline. This paper presents findings from a framed field experiment that examines how different types of monetary incentives affect forest-clearing decisions in northern Namibia, a semi-arid region with negligible forest regrowth. We implemented a common-pool resource game with 518 smallholder farmers across 25 villages, in which a forest stock declines dynamically based on participants’ clearing decisions, without immediate regrowth. The game spans three periods: a baseline without incentives, an intervention period with individual or collective rewards or an individual fee, and a post-incentive phase. This setup allows us to assess both the immediate effects of incentives and their persistence after incentive removal. All incentive types reduce clearing compared to baseline, but not significantly more than in the control condition, where clearing also declined – an unexpected trend likely linked to features of the dynamic game design. Incentive effects largely dissipate after removal, with no strong evidence of lasting motivational crowding-in or crowding-out. Overall, our results suggest that moderate payments may be insufficient to sustain cooperation in persistent resource dilemmas. More broadly, they highlight the importance of multifaceted analysis including control conditions and careful experimental framing in field-laboratory studies, coupled with caution in generalizing findings to other settings or policy applications. JEL classification: C91, D91, Q15, Q23, Q57 Keywords: common-pool resources, framed field experiment, deforestation, conservation policy, sustainable land use