Co-financing and Principal–Agent Relationships in a Swiss Agri-environmental Programme

Abstract

Co-financing political programmes between different administrative levels opens the door for principal–agent situations. The lower administrative level may have an incentive to overspend and to modify the nature of the programme. These challenges are empirically tested for a co-financed Swiss programme that supports agri-environmental networks. For ten cantons, the legal implementation of federal requirements was examined and interviews were carried out and evaluated. It was concluded that a clearly defined framework established by the upper-level administration and a limited share of the budget provided by the upper level sets incentives to comply and disincentives for opportunistic behaviour.

Keywords:

• Cantons
• Switzerland
• co-financing
• biodiversity