IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aim/wpaimx/2537.html

The Cultural Roots of Deforestation in Africa

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We study the relationship between culture and environmental conservation through the lens of deforestation. Focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 2001- 2021, we show that changes of national leaders affect deforestation in a way that depends on the environmental culture of their ethnic group’s. We use data on folklore to measure the importance of forests in group-specific culture. We find that deforestation and land-intensive activities increase in the ethnic homelands of leaders whose ethnic groups have no or little forest-related culture. These patterns are reversed when the leader’s group has a salient forest culture. Our results suggest that culture is an important lever for environmental conservation in Africa.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Berman & Mathieu Couttenier & Raphael Soubeyran, 2025. "The Cultural Roots of Deforestation in Africa," AMSE Working Papers 2537, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://test.amse-aixmarseille.fr/sites/default/files/working_papers/wp_2025_nr_37.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2015. "Culture and Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(4), pages 898-944, December.
    2. Juliano Assunção & Clarissa Gandour & Romero Rocha, 2023. "DETER-ing Deforestation in the Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 125-156, April.
    3. Francesco Amodio & Giorgio Chiovelli & Sebastian Hohmann, 2024. "The Employment Effects of Ethnic Politics," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 456-491, April.
    4. Angelsen, Arild, 1999. "Agricultural expansion and deforestation: modelling the impact of population, market forces and property rights," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 185-218, February.
    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. Jonathan Muringani & Rune Dahl Fitjar & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2024. "Political trust and economic development in European regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 73(4), pages 2059-2089, December.
    2. Babigumira, Ronnie & Angelsen, Arild & Buis, Maarten & Bauch, Simone & Sunderland, Terry & Wunder, Sven, 2014. "Forest Clearing in Rural Livelihoods: Household-Level Global-Comparative Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(S1), pages 67-79.
    3. Tendai Zawaira & Matthew W. Clance & Carolyn Chisadza, 2020. "Social Institutions and Gender-Biased Outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 2020101, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    4. Núria Rodríguez‐Planas, 2018. "Mortgage finance and culture," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 786-821, September.
    5. Tausch, Arno, 2018. "The return of religious Antisemitism? The evidence from World Values Survey data," MPRA Paper 90093, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Alexander Alexandrovich Golub & Marek Hanusch & Bardal,Diogo & Bruce Ian Keith & Daniel Navia Simon & Cornelius Fleischhaker, 2025. "Innovative Financial Instruments and Their Role in the Development of Jurisdictional REDD+," Policy Research Working Paper Series 11114, The World Bank.
    7. Josef C. Brada & Ichiro Iwasaki, 2022. "The Effect of Target-Country Institutions on Cross-Border Merger and Acquisition Activity: A Quantitative Literature Survey," Econometric Research in Finance, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, vol. 7(1), pages 1-70.
    8. Patrick Bottazzi & David Crespo & Harry Soria & Hy Dao & Marcelo Serrudo & Jean Paul Benavides & Stefan Schwarzer & Stephan Rist, 2014. "Carbon Sequestration in Community Forests: Trade-offs, Multiple Outcomes and Institutional Diversity in the Bolivian Amazon," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(1), pages 105-131, January.
    9. Qiliang Mao & Xianzhuang Mao, 2021. "Cultural barriers, institutional distance, and spatial spillovers: Evidence from regional industrial evolution in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 1440-1481, September.
    10. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "Jewish communities and city growth in preindustrial Europe," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 339-354.
    11. Stefano Bartolini & Francesco Sarracino, 2021. "Happier and Sustainable. Possibilities for a post-growth society," Department of Economics University of Siena 855, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    12. Sébastien Marchand, 2011. "Technical Efficiency, Farm Size and Tropical Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonian Forest," Working Papers halshs-00552981, HAL.
    13. Avtonomov, Vladimir S. (Автономов, Владимир) & Vorobyev, Andrei S. (Воробьев, Андрей) & Kononenko, Pavel B. (Кононенко, Павел) & Raskov, Danila E. (Расков, Данила) & Tulchinskii, Grigorii L. (Толчинск, 2017. "Culture as the New Frontier of Economics [Культура Как Новый Фронтир В Экономической Науке]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 178-193, October.
    14. Chen, Xia & Wang, Lili & Zhu, Yinghuan & Shang, Yue, 2023. "Has shareholder background been priced?–Evidence from the issuance of financial bonds by financial leasing companies," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    15. Banerjee, Biswajit & Herrala, Risto, 2024. "Testing the impact of liquidation speed on leverage using Indian data," BOFIT Discussion Papers 6/2024, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    16. Ethan Ilzetzki & Saverio Simonelli, 2017. "Measuring Productivity Dispersion: Lessons From Counting One-Hundred Million Ballots," CSEF Working Papers 483, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    17. Ylenia Brilli & Simone Moriconi, 2023. "Culture of Origin, Parenting, and Household Labor Supply," Working Papers 2023: 17, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    18. Javier Barbero & Ernesto Rodríguez-Crespo, 2022. "Technological, institutional, and geographical peripheries: regional development and risk of poverty in the European regions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(2), pages 311-332, October.
    19. Jaza Folefack, Achille Jean & Ngo Njiki, Marie Gaelle & Darr, Dietrich, 2019. "Safeguarding forests from smallholder oil palm expansion by more intensive production? The case of Ngwei forest (Cameroon)," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 45-61.
    20. Vitaly V. Biryukov, 2023. "The Human Economic Model in the Context of a Systematic Approach to the Study of Economics," Economics of Contemporary Russia, Regional Public Organization for Assistance to the Development of Institutions of the Department of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, issue 3.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • Q5 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:aim:wpaimx:2537. 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: Gregory Cornu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/amseafr.html .

    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.