IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/forpol/v169y2024ics1389934124001965.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The dynamics of deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa: The impact of environmental policy and foreign direct investment on forest conversion

Author

Listed:
  • Lunku, Hassan Swedy
  • Li, Zaiyang
  • Yang, Shaohua
  • Shayo, Amani
  • Ngoma, Jonathan Bakadila

Abstract

Amidst the pressing global concern over climate change, the urgent need to address deforestation and promote forest conservation has become a focal point on political and social agendas. This study investigates the intricate relationship between economic performance and deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using a panel of SSA economies from 2000 to 2020, we examine the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis for deforestation, taking into account the effects of heterogeneity, and the influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) and environmental policy. Our findings underscore the significance of heterogeneity, as the region exhibits both negative and positive deforestation trends throughout the study period. The results provide compelling evidence supporting the inverted N-shaped EKC hypothesis for deforestation when accounting for the intervening impact of FDI and policy. The EKC turning points 803.12 and 2596.27 correspond to levels of economic performance, indicating that policy measures have a greater impact on curbing deforestation than FDI. To achieve inclusive growth and create a livable environment, it is essential to prioritise forest conservation, control population growth, manage agricultural activities, regulate trade, and protect environmental ecosystems. This will necessitate significant changes in human activities and energy consumption to promote sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Lunku, Hassan Swedy & Li, Zaiyang & Yang, Shaohua & Shayo, Amani & Ngoma, Jonathan Bakadila, 2024. "The dynamics of deforestation in sub-Saharan Africa: The impact of environmental policy and foreign direct investment on forest conversion," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s1389934124001965
    DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103342
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934124001965
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103342?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lin, Boqiang & Chen, Yufang, 2019. "Does electricity price matter for innovation in renewable energy technologies in China?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 259-266.
    2. Pedroni, Peter, 2004. "Panel Cointegration: Asymptotic And Finite Sample Properties Of Pooled Time Series Tests With An Application To The Ppp Hypothesis," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 597-625, June.
    3. Ariane Manuela Amin & Johanna Choumert, 2013. "Development and biodiversity conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A spatial analysis," CERDI Working papers halshs-00799175, HAL.
    4. Grossman, G.M & Krueger, A.B., 1991. "Environmental Impacts of a North American Free Trade Agreement," Papers 158, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School - Public and International Affairs.
    5. Gene M. Grossman & Alan B. Krueger, 1995. "Economic Growth and the Environment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 353-377.
    6. Hashem Pesaran, M. & Yamagata, Takashi, 2008. "Testing slope homogeneity in large panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 50-93, January.
    7. Joakim Westerlund, 2007. "Testing for Error Correction in Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 69(6), pages 709-748, December.
    8. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    9. Mahamuda Firoj & Nair Sultana & Sharmina Khanom & Md Harun Ur Rashid & Abeda Sultana, 2023. "Pollution haven hypothesis and the environmental Kuznets curve of Bangladesh: an empirical investigation," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 197-227, March.
    10. Kao, Chihwa, 1999. "Spurious regression and residual-based tests for cointegration in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-44, May.
    11. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    12. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2015. "Testing Weak Cross-Sectional Dependence in Large Panels," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(6-10), pages 1089-1117, December.
    13. Culas, Richard J., 2007. "Deforestation and the environmental Kuznets curve: An institutional perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2-3), pages 429-437, March.
    14. Okui, Ryo & Yanagi, Takahide, 2019. "Panel data analysis with heterogeneous dynamics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(2), pages 451-475.
    15. Ariane Amin & Johanna Choumert, 2015. "Development and biodiversity conservation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A spatial analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(1), pages 729-744.
    16. Xie, Mingting & Irfan, Muhammad & Razzaq, Asif & Dagar, Vishal, 2022. "Forest and mineral volatility and economic performance: Evidence from frequency domain causality approach for global data," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    17. Schmook, Birgit & Vance, Colin, 2009. "Agricultural Policy, Market Barriers, and Deforestation: The Case of Mexico's Southern Yucatn," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1015-1025, May.
    18. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2007. "A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 265-312.
    19. Edward B. Barbier, 2004. "Explaining Agricultural Land Expansion and Deforestation in Developing Countries," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(5), pages 1347-1353.
    20. Cropper, Maureen & Griffiths, Charles, 1994. "The Interaction of Population Growth and Environmental Quality," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 250-254, May.
    21. Nguyen, Canh Phuc & Nguyen, Binh Quang, 2023. "Environmental foe or friend: The influence of the shadow economy on forest land," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    22. Caravaggio, Nicola, 2020. "Economic growth and the forest development path: A theoretical re-assessment of the environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    23. Agras, Jean & Chapman, Duane, 1999. "A dynamic approach to the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 267-277, February.
    24. Zhang, Dongyang, 2022. "Environmental regulation and firm product quality improvement: How does the greenwashing response?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    25. Acaravci, Ali & Ozturk, Ilhan, 2012. "Foreign Direct Investment, Export and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from New EU Countries," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(2), pages 52-67, June.
    26. Bhattarai, Madhusudan & Hammig, Michael, 2001. "Institutions and the Environmental Kuznets Curve for Deforestation: A Crosscountry Analysis for Latin America, Africa and Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 995-1010, June.
    27. Rafael E. De Hoyos & Vasilis Sarafidis, 2006. "Testing for cross-sectional dependence in panel-data models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 6(4), pages 482-496, December.
    28. Dinda, Soumyananda, 2004. "Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis: A Survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 431-455, August.
    29. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    30. Zhang, Qian & Wang, Rong & Tang, Decai & Boamah, Valentina, 2023. "The role and transmission mechanism of forest resource abundance on low-carbon economic development in the Yangtze River Delta region: Insights from the COP26 targets," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(PA).
    31. Caravaggio, Nicola, 2020. "A global empirical re-assessment of the Environmental Kuznets curve for deforestation," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ajanaku, B.A. & Collins, A.R., 2021. "Economic growth and deforestation in African countries: Is the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis applicable?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    2. Boris OK Lokonon & Ichaou Mounirou, 2019. "Does foreign direct investment impede forest area in Sub‐Saharan Africa?," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(4), pages 230-240, November.
    3. Iftikhar Yasin & Nawaz Ahmad & M. Aslam Chaudhary, 2020. "Catechizing the Environmental-Impression of Urbanization, Financial Development, and Political Institutions: A Circumstance of Ecological Footprints in 110 Developed and Less-Developed Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 621-649, January.
    4. Tiba, Sofien & Frikha, Mohamed, 2019. "The controversy of the resource curse and the environment in the SDGs background: The African context," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 437-452.
    5. Halkos, George, 2011. "Economy - environment relationship: The case of sulphur emissions," MPRA Paper 45480, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Yi-Bin Chiu, 2012. "Deforestation and the Environmental Kuznets Curve in Developing Countries: A Panel Smooth Transition Regression Approach," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 60(2), pages 177-194, June.
    7. Ozcan, Burcu, 2013. "The nexus between carbon emissions, energy consumption and economic growth in Middle East countries: A panel data analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1138-1147.
    8. Ahmad, Munir & Zhu, Xiwei & Wu, Yiyun, 2022. "The criticality of international tourism and technological innovation for carbon neutrality across regional development levels," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    9. Francisco García-Lillo & Eduardo Sánchez-García & Bartolomé Marco-Lajara & Pedro Seva-Larrosa, 2023. "Renewable Energies and Sustainable Development: A Bibliometric Overview," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-22, January.
    10. Saia, Artjom, 2023. "Digitalization and CO2 emissions: Dynamics under R&D and technology innovation regimes," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Wagner, Martin, 2008. "The carbon Kuznets curve: A cloudy picture emitted by bad econometrics?," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 388-408, August.
    12. Tiba, Sofien & Belaid, Fateh, 2020. "The pollution concern in the era of globalization: Do the contribution of foreign direct investment and trade openness matter?," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    13. Mirza, Faisal Mehmood & Sinha, Avik & Khan, Javeria Rehman & Kalugina, Olga A. & Zafar, Muhammad Wasif, 2022. "Impact of Energy Efficiency on CO2 Emissions: Empirical Evidence from Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 111923, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2022.
    14. Pablo-Romero, María P. & Sánchez-Braza, Antonio & Gil-Pérez, Jesús, 2023. "Is deforestation needed for growth? Testing the EKC hypothesis for Latin America," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    15. Afef Bouattour & Maha Kalai & Kamel Helali, 2024. "The non-linear relationship between ESG performance and bank stability in the digital era: new evidence from a regime-switching approach," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, December.
    16. Abbas, Shujaat & Saqib, Najia & Mohammed, Kamel Si & Sahore, Nidhi & Shahzad, Umer, 2024. "Pathways towards carbon neutrality in low carbon cities: The role of green patents, R&D and energy use for carbon emissions," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    17. Prempeh Kwadwo Boateng & Frimpong Joseph Magnus & Yeboah Samuel Asuamah, 2024. "The dynamics of financial development, environmental degradation, economic growth and population health in the Economic Community of West African States," Environmental & Socio-economic Studies, Sciendo, vol. 12(2), pages 13-27.
    18. Shreya Pal, 2024. "The International Capital Flows and Domestic Savings–domestic Investment Nexus: A Comparative Evidence Between Heterogeneous Developing Regions," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 13(2), pages 169-212, December.
    19. Myo Myo Htike & Anil Shrestha & Makoto Kakinaka, 2022. "Investigating whether the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis holds for sectoral CO2 emissions: evidence from developed and developing countries," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(11), pages 12712-12739, November.
    20. Abdelaziz Boukhelkhal, 2022. "Energy use, economic growth and CO2 emissions in Africa: does the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis exist? New evidence from heterogeneous panel under cross-sectional dependence," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(11), pages 13083-13110, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s1389934124001965. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.