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• Current AECSs fail to provide an effective level of environmental good in agriculture. • The post-2020 proposals for the CAP reinforce the role of research in delivering reliable ex-post analyses of AECSs to improve their effectiveness. • This paper estimates the effects of different AECS payment levels on indicators of environmental quality. • The results reveal the significant impact of agri-environmental schemes on management intensity, but show an uneven distribution among the various levels of payments. • This paper contributes to the ongoing debate regarding the post-2020 CAP by incorporating reflection and a proposal for measuring results-based payments. Promoting sustainable agricultural systems, maintaining biodiversity, and establishing measures to counteract climate change are the clear objectives of the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); however, there is still uncertainty regarding its implementation. At the level of the European Union, the justification for the CAP appears increasingly linked to the translation of policy objectives into results-based measures. Accordingly, in this paper, we estimate a composite indicator to track changes at the farm level and assess the impacts of agri-environment climate schemes (AECSs) on the change in management intensity. As AECS payments are tailored to compensate for the costs and income forgone due to participation in environmentally friendly measures, we assume that any environmental benefits increase with the amount of payment received. We estimate the effects of differential payments on management intensity by applying a generalised propensity score approach to a case study comprising all AECSs implemented in the Veneto region (North-eastern Italy). We find that AECSs have a significant effect on the composite indicator of extensification, but the provision of environmental good differs among the varying levels of payments. Our results contribute in-depth reflections and a proposal for measuring the cost-effectiveness of AECSs to the ongoing debate on the post-2020 CAP regarding AECSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]