IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdl/agrebk/qt42z699vk.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Tale of Two Communities: Explaining Deforestation in Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Alix-Garcia, Jennifer
  • de Janvry, Alain
  • Sadoulet, Elisabeth

Abstract

Explaining land use change in Mexico requires understanding the behavior of the local institutions involved. We develop two theories to explain deforestation in communities with and without forestry projects, where the former involves a process of side payments to non-members of the community and the latter of partial cooperation among community members. Data collected in 2002 combined with satellite imagery are used to test these theories. For the forestry villages, we establish a positive relationship between the distribution of profits as dividends instead of public goods and forest loss. For communities not engaged in forestry projects, deforestation is largely related to the ability of the community to induce the formation of a coalition of members that cooperates in not encroaching. This happens more easily in smaller communities with experienced leaders. A disturbing result of the analysis is that deforestation is higher when a community engages in forestry projects, even after properly accounting for self-selection into this activity. This suggests that forestry projects as they now exist in Mexico are not sustainable and contribute to the deforestation problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Alix-Garcia, Jennifer & de Janvry, Alain & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 2003. "A Tale of Two Communities: Explaining Deforestation in Mexico," Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series qt42z699vk, Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt42z699vk
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/42z699vk.pdf;origin=repeccitec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Petrakis, Emmanuel & Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 1996. "Environmental consciousness and moral hazard in international agreements to protect the environment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 95-110, April.
    2. Munoz-Pina, Carlos & de Janvry, Alain & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 2003. "Recrafting Rights over Common Property Resources in Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 129-158, October.
    3. Vance, Colin & Geoghegan, Jacqueline, 2002. "Temporal and spatial modelling of tropical deforestation: a survival analysis linking satellite and household survey data," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 317-332, November.
    4. Deininger, Klaus W & Minten, Bart, 1999. "Poverty, Policies, and Deforestation: The Case of Mexico," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(2), pages 313-344, January.
    5. Bianco, William T. & Bates, Robert H., 1990. "Cooperation by Design: Leadership, Structure, and Collective Dilemmas," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 84(1), pages 133-147, March.
    6. Carraro, Carlo & Siniscalco, Domenico, 1993. "Strategies for the international protection of the environment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 309-328, October.
    7. Chomitz, Kenneth M & Gray, David A, 1996. "Roads, Land Use, and Deforestation: A Spatial Model Applied to Belize," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 487-512, September.
    8. Barrett, Scott, 1994. "Self-Enforcing International Environmental Agreements," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(0), pages 878-894, Supplemen.
    9. Munroe, Darla K. & Southworth, Jane & Tucker, Catherine M., 2002. "The dynamics of land-cover change in western Honduras: exploring spatial and temporal complexity," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 355-369, November.
    10. Edward B. Barbier, 2001. "The Economics of Tropical Deforestation and Land Use: An Introduction to the Special Issue," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(2), pages 155-171.
    11. Godoy, Ricardo & Contreras, Manuel, 2001. "A Comparative Study of Education and Tropical Deforestation among Lowland Bolivian Amerindians: Forest Values, Environmental Externality, and School Subsidies," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(3), pages 555-574, April.
    12. Maureen Cropper & Jyotsna Puri & Charles Griffiths, 2001. "Predicting the Location of Deforestation: The Role of Roads and Protected Areas in North Thailand," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 77(2), pages 172-186.
    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. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer, 2007. "A spatial analysis of common property deforestation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 141-157, March.
    2. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer Marie, 2004. "Seeing the forest and the trees: a spatial analysis of common property land use," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20189, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Kere, Eric Nazindigouba & Choumert, Johanna & Combes Motel, Pascale & Combes, Jean Louis & Santoni, Olivier & Schwartz, Sonia, 2017. "Addressing Contextual and Location Biases in the Assessment of Protected Areas Effectiveness on Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazônia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 148-158.
    4. Ansink, Erik & Weikard, Hans-Peter & Withagen, Cees, 2019. "International environmental agreements with support," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 241-252.
    5. Allen Blackman & Beatriz Ávalos-Sartorio & Jeffrey Chow, 2012. "Land Cover Change in Agroforestry: Shade Coffee in El Salvador," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 88(1), pages 75-101.
    6. Alessandro De Pinto & Gerald C. Nelson, 2007. "Modelling Deforestation and Land‐Use Change: Sparse Data Environments," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(3), pages 502-516, September.
    7. Nelson, Gerald C. & Geoghegan, Jacqueline, 2002. "Deforestation and land use change: sparse data environments," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 201-216, November.
    8. Marchiori, Carmen & Dietz, Simon & Tavoni, Alessandro, 2017. "Domestic politics and the formation of international environmental agreements," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 115-131.
    9. Michael Finus & Bianca Rundshagen, 2005. "Participation in International Environmental Agreements: The Role of Timing and Regulation," Working Papers 2005.45, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    10. Blackman, Allen & Ã valos-Sartorio, Beatriz & Chow, Jeffrey, 2008. "Land Cover Change in Mixed Agroforestry: Shade Coffee in El Salvador," RFF Working Paper Series dp-08-25-efd, Resources for the Future.
    11. Damania,Richard & Wheeler,David J., 2015. "Road improvement and deforestation in the Congo Basin countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7274, The World Bank.
    12. Carlo Carraro & Johan Eyckmans & Michael Finus, 2006. "Optimal transfers and participation decisions in international environmental agreements," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 379-396, December.
    13. Carlo Carraro & Emanuele Massetti, 2010. "International Climate Change Negotiations: Lessons from Theory," Chapters, in: Emilio Cerdá Tena & Xavier Labandeira (ed.), Climate Change Policies, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Wheeler, David & Hammer, Dan & Kraft, Robin & Dasgupta, Susmita & Blankespoor, Brian, 2013. "Economic dynamics and forest clearing: A spatial econometric analysis for Indonesia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 85-96.
    15. David Wheeler, Dan Hammer, Robin Kraft, 2011. "From REDD to Green: A Global Incentive System to Stop Tropical Forest Clearing- Working Paper 282," Working Papers 282, Center for Global Development.
    16. Daniel Müller & Darla K. Munroe, 2005. "Tradeoffs between Rural Development Policies and Forest Protection: Spatially Explicit Modeling in the Central Highlands of Vietnam," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(3).
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4069 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Robinson, Elizabeth J.Z. & Albers, Heidi J. & Williams, Jeffrey C., 2008. "Spatial and temporal modeling of community non-timber forest extraction," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 234-245, November.
    19. Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon and Jonah Busch, 2014. "What Drives Deforestation and What Stops It? A Meta-Analysis of Spatially Explicit Econometric Studies - Working Paper 361," Working Papers 361, Center for Global Development.
    20. Haixiao Huang, Walter C. Labys, 2002. "Environment and trade: a review of issues and methods," International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(1/2), pages 100-160.
    21. Carraro, Carlo & Marchiori, Carmen & Sgobbi, Alessandra, 2005. "Advances in negotiation theory : bargaining, coalitions, and fairness," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3642, The World Bank.

    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:cdl:agrebk:qt42z699vk. 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: Lisa Schiff (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dabrkus.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.