Francisco Alpízar is the Chair and Professor of the Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Group at the Department of Social Sciences in Wageningen University and Research. Before that, he was a senior research fellow at the Economics and Environment for Development Research Program at the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), a leading multilateral research institute based in Costa Rica. In 2005, he founded and directed the Latin American and Caribbean Environmental Economics Program.
Alpizar’s work has explored incentive based approaches to generate improved private and public management and use of natural resource with a particular focus on climate change and developing countries. He has undertaken studies using behavioral, experimental and nonmarket valuation methods. Alpizar has also done work on payments for ecosystem services and the management of natural protected areas with an emphasis on interactions with local communities. His work appears in a number of journals including: Nature Sustainability, Nature Climate Change, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Environmental and Resource Economics, Ecological Economics, and World Development. Alpizar is currently an international advisor to the Center for Collective Action Research, at University of Gothenburg, and has been Associate Editor of World Development and Guest Editor at Environmental and Development Economics. He has served as a consultant to the Global Environmental Fund, Inter-American Development Bank, IUCN, Nature Conservancy, United Nations Development Program, World Bank, and the World Wildlife Federation, among others.
His research explores incentive-based approaches to improve private and public management of natural resources. He draws on basic concepts and methodologies from environmental, development and behavioral economics to examine individual decisions and their role in achieving higher social welfare. Some specific areas of interest are:
- Behavioral insights for the design of green growth policies in developing countries
- Design and application of economic policy instruments to environmental problems in developing countries
- Environmental valuation methods (Contingent Valuation Method and Choice experiments): applications and performance evaluations
- Design, financing and evaluation of Payment for Ecosystem Services
- Management and funding of natural protected areas.