Technical Efï¬ciency, Farm Size and Tropical Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonian Forest
Abstract
This paper analyses the impact of farm productivity as well as farm size on deforestation in Brazil. A two step econometric approach is adopted. A bootstrapped translog stochastic frontier that is a posteriori checked for functional consistency is used in order to estimate technical efficiency of which estimates are introduced in a land use model to assess the impact of productivity and farm size on deforestation. Analysis of agricultural census tract data suggests that technical efficiency has a nonlinear (convex) effect: less and more efficient farms use more land for agricultural activities and so they have a positive effect on deforestation. However, the majority of farms are on the ascendant slope so that efficiency implies more deforestation in Brazilian Legal Amazon. Moreover, farm size has a robust negative effect on deforestation. Contrary to many studies, this result suggests that small farms convert more natural (forested) land into agricultural land than large ones.Download Info
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Paper provided by CERDI in its series Working Papers with number 201012.Length: 30
Date of creation: 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cdi:wpaper:1161
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Related research
Keywords: Farm size; Stochastic frontier model; Brazil.; Land use model;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- Q24 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Land
- Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-AGR-2010-04-24 (Agricultural Economics)
- NEP-ALL-2010-04-24 (All new papers)
- NEP-EFF-2010-04-24 (Efficiency & Productivity)
- NEP-ENV-2010-04-24 (Environmental Economics)
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Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Ben Groom & Charles Palmer, 2012. "Relaxing Constraints as a Conservation Policy," Working Papers 2012.63, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
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