Dry promotions and community participation: Evidence from a natural field experiment in Brazilian fishing villages

This paper investigates the role of dry promotions for community participation in eight Brazilian fishing villages. We randomly promoted some fishermen to assistants before the start of an environmental program, increasing their responsibilities but not providing any monetary compensation. Thereafter, we study whether they engage more in conservation behavior during this program. The data shows that promoted fishermen provide substantially more effort, which suggests that such promotions may be a cost-effective tool to stimulate cooperation and community participation.