# **3.2 LAND-COVER MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL OUTCOMES DATA**

## _Sampling Framework_

Land-cover management and social outcomes were obtained through a survey designed specifically for this study and implemented in 2016. As noted above, the survey focused on common property communities. Two types of surveys were administered in each study community: one to the community leader (defined as a person holding one of four key governance positions in the _ejido_ or _comunidad_ ) and one to household heads or substitute household members.

The sample for the survey consisted of 862 communities - 493 program participants and 369 nonparticipants. In each community, we surveyed the community leader and a randomly selected set of 10 households, for a total of 8,413 households. Our sampling strategy initially divided the country into four zones (North, Centre, South and Yucatan Peninsula), corresponding to major regions of Mexico. Within these zones, we selected the 12 states with high numbers of applications.

We then took all treatments and controls as close as possible to the cutoff for each cohort and state until arriving at a sample size that represented the proportion of program applicants for that state and cohort and a total sample size in accordance with pre-study power calculations (described in detail in the Appendix). The sample size for land management activities, socio-economic and social capital outcomes assumed larger minimum detectable effects (MDE) for the earlier cohorts. The survey sample was powered to detect effects in the range of 0.16-0.30 standard deviation for the early cohorts and 0.13 to 0.25 for the later ones. The survey interviewed only households with full land rights ( _ejidatarios/comuneros_ ) as these are the households who formally participate in decisions about whether to enroll in the program, how to participate, and how to use the payments received. Non- _ejidatario_ households ( _avecindados_ ) were excluded due to budgetary constraints and past work suggesting minimal impacts on those households.<sup>11</sup>

## _Measures and Indices_

Outcome indicators were developed by drawing on instruments from previous evaluations of the Mexico PES program (Alix-Garcia et al., 2012, 2015) and CONAFOR’s Annual Participant Surveys, as well as field testing of new questions. The community leader provided information on land-cover management activities such as the construction of fire breaks, fences and boreholes, firefighting, pest control, nurseries, reforestation, pruning, post-harvest cleaning, patrolling for illegal logging and soil conservation. We created the index of land management by summing up the number of these activities practiced by each ejido. The household survey collected data on paid and unpaid forest management and community work by household members, household assets, consumption, educational attainment, credit constraints, attitudes and participation in community activities. Household wealth measures were constructed from questions related to housing characteristics, asset ownership and food consumption. We also collected other socio-economic indicators, such as livestock ownership and emigration patterns, as well as educational indicators (the fraction of children

> 11 This is of policy concern as the latter do not formally participate in key decisions related to the program, such as what parcels to submit and how to use the PES payments. Prior work in Mexico (Alix-Garcia et al. 2015), suggests that the program did not have negative impacts on households without full rights. Our community-leader survey indicates that non-ejidatario households represented approximately 30 percent of the total number of households.

11