Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Rethinking the Causes of Deforestation: Lessons from Economic Models

Rethinking the Causes of Deforestation: Lessons from Economic Models AbstractThis article, which synthesizes the results of more than 140 economic models analyzing the causes of tropical deforestation, raises significant doubts about many conventional hypotheses in the debate about deforestation. More roads, higher agricultural prices, lower wages, and a shortage of off-farm employment generally lead to more deforestation. How technical change, agricultural input prices, household income levels, and tenure security affect deforestation—if at all—is unknown. The role of macroeconomic factors such as population growth, poverty reduction, national income, economic growth, and foreign debt is also ambiguous. This review, however, finds that policy reforms included in current economic liberalization and adjustment efforts may increase the pressure on forests. Although the boom in deforestation modeling has yielded new insights, weak methodology and poor-quality data make the results of many models questionable. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The World Bank Research Observer Oxford University Press

Rethinking the Causes of Deforestation: Lessons from Economic Models

Download PDF
26 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/rethinking-the-causes-of-deforestation-lessons-from-economic-models-wZbafoc23w

References (90)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© 1999 The International Bank
ISSN
0257-3032
eISSN
1564-6971
DOI
10.1093/wbro/14.1.73
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AbstractThis article, which synthesizes the results of more than 140 economic models analyzing the causes of tropical deforestation, raises significant doubts about many conventional hypotheses in the debate about deforestation. More roads, higher agricultural prices, lower wages, and a shortage of off-farm employment generally lead to more deforestation. How technical change, agricultural input prices, household income levels, and tenure security affect deforestation—if at all—is unknown. The role of macroeconomic factors such as population growth, poverty reduction, national income, economic growth, and foreign debt is also ambiguous. This review, however, finds that policy reforms included in current economic liberalization and adjustment efforts may increase the pressure on forests. Although the boom in deforestation modeling has yielded new insights, weak methodology and poor-quality data make the results of many models questionable.

Journal

The World Bank Research Observer – Oxford University Press

Published: Feb 1, 1999

There are no references for this article.