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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Tropical Deforestation and Economic Development

Alternative title: Tropisk avskoging og økonomisk utvikling

Awarded: NOK 7.0 mill.

Project Number:

230860

Project Period:

2014 - 2018

Subject Fields:

Tropical deforestation attracts attention due to accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Economic development directly and indirectly relates to the economic drivers behind tropical deforestation. Economic theory sheds light on the links between economic development and deforestation, which is analysed in Brazilian as well as global data. External variation in economic development, such as onshore oil and mining activities and international commodity prices, helps in dealing with the main research challenge in the empirical literature; identification of causal effects. The project also studies impacts of policy efforts against deforestation, such as monitoring and conservation. A novelty of the empirical approach lies with the use of the spatial dimension, connecting data on forest cover and economic activity at a high spatial resolution. The key output of the project will be articles for scientific publication. Given the potential importance of climate change and the significant contribution of tropical deforestation, policy efforts and substantial funds are mobilised to reduce tropical deforestation. By studying the links between economic development, policy efforts and tropical deforestation, the project has the potential to inform policy decisions regarding deforestation in developing countries.

Impacts on research environments: The project has strengthen the research environment on the study of deforestation in Bergen and Norway, as well as in Brazil and the UK. Training of scientists: Papers directly from the project have been or will be included in at least three PhD dissertations. Two of the three assistants at the master's level the project hired, have moved on to good PhD programs (INPE and Indiana University). Po Yin Wong was hired as a post-doctoral researcher financed by the project for three years. She will go on the international job market the coming season. Influencing teaching: Insights from the project has directly influenced teaching at NHH. Impact on society: We hope the research papers will inform policies against tropical deforestation. We have already worked with the Brazilian government. In the summer of 2018, we had a workshop including the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment and NORAD.

Tropical deforestation has attracted attention due to accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Two aspects of economic development interact in important ways with tropical deforestation: a shift of resources from agricultural sectors to manufac turing and service sectors (structural change) and increased concentration of economic activity (urbanisation). The proposed research project will contribute to the understanding of the links between deforestation and economic development in two main wa ys: 1) The process of economic development entails important sectoral and spatial shifts that are important for deforestation, and theoretical models will be formulised to trace out the relevant mechanisms. 2) The hypothesized mechanisms will be tested in the data. By taking advantage of two sources of exogenous variation in economic growth (onshore oil exploration/production and economic growth in urban agglomerations), the empirical strategy will deal with the main empirical research challenge in the literature; empirical identification of causal effects. The novelty of our empirical approach lies with the use of the spatial dimension, connecting data on forest cover, economic activity (night time light), and oil wells at a high spatial resolution (s maller than 1 km2 pixels). The empirical research will use Brazilian data. The proposed research project will generate three research papers, focusing on: i) structural change and deforestation; ii) urbanisation and deforestation; iii) political institu tions and deforestation. Given the potential importance of climate change and the significant contribution of tropical deforestation, policy efforts and substantial funds are currently mobilised to reduce tropical deforestation. Our research will be info rmative for policy by highlighting key trade-offs involved in preserving tropical forest and how such trade-offs depend on the economics of other sectors.

Publications from Cristin

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Funding scheme:

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam