IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/gdec09/18.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Institutions, Economic Development, and Deforestation

Author

Listed:
  • Grimm, Michael
  • Klasen, Stephan
  • Schwarze, Stefan

Abstract

This paper offers a unified framework linking two important debates: First, the debate about the respective roles of geography and institutions on economic development; Second, the literature on the role of technological change and economic development on agricultural intensification and land use changes. We use this framework to study empirically deforestation patterns at the rainforest margin. To this end we specify an empirical model that can explore the causal chain ranging from geographic conditions via institutional change to economic development and deforestation. We estimate this model using a unique data set of villages at the rainforest margin in Indonesia. Our results show that geography-induced institutional change is the key driver of technological change in our villages. The bad news is that some of these processes along the causal chain seem to promote deforestation. The good news is that economic development, conditional on these effects, appears to reduce deforestation.

Suggested Citation

  • Grimm, Michael & Klasen, Stephan & Schwarze, Stefan, 2009. "Institutions, Economic Development, and Deforestation," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Frankfurt a.M. 2009 18, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gdec09:18
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/39950/1/18_klasen.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Migot-Adholla, Shem, et al, 1991. "Indigenous Land Rights Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Constraint on Productivity?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 5(1), pages 155-175, January.
    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. Grimm, Michael & Klasen, Stephan, 2007. "Geography vs. Institutions at the Village Level," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 9, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    2. Mackinnon, John & Reinikka, Ritva, 2000. "Lessons from Uganda on strategies to fight poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2440, The World Bank.
    3. Daniel Ayalew Ali & Stefan Dercon & Madhur Gautam, 2011. "Property rights in a very poor country: tenure insecurity and investment in Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 42(1), pages 75-86, January.
    4. Thomas Vendryes, 2014. "Peasants Against Private Property Rights: A Review Of The Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 971-995, December.
    5. Smith, Robert E., 2004. "Land Tenure, Fixed Investment, and Farm Productivity: Evidence from Zambia's Southern Province," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 1641-1661, October.
    6. Han, Wenjing & Zhang, Xiaoling & Zhang, Zhengfeng, 2019. "The role of land tenure security in promoting rural women’s empowerment: Empirical evidence from rural China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 280-289.
    7. Ghebru, Hosaena, 2015. "Is There a Merit to the Continuum Tenure Approach? A Case of Demand for Land Rights Formulation in Rural Mozambique," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211683, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    8. Besley, Timothy, 1995. "Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(5), pages 903-937, October.
    9. Ramón López & Alberto Valdés, 2000. "Fighting Rural Poverty in Latin America: New Evidence and Policy," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Ramón López & Alberto Valdés (ed.), Rural Poverty in Latin America, chapter 1, pages 1-31, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Willy, Daniel Kyalo & Holm-Müller, Karin, 2013. "Social influence and collective action effects on farm level soil conservation effort in rural Kenya," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 94-103.
    11. Birungi, Patrick & Hassan, Rashid M., 2010. "Poverty, property rights and land management in Uganda," Journal of Cooperatives, NCERA-210, vol. 4(1), March.
    12. Zaid Abubakari & Christine Richter & Jaap Zevenbergen, 2020. "Evaluating Some Major Assumptions in Land Registration: Insights from Ghana’s Context of Land Tenure and Registration," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-14, August.
    13. Akaateba, Millicent Awialie, 2019. "The politics of customary land rights transformation in peri-urban Ghana: Powers of exclusion in the era of land commodification," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    14. Katleen Van den Broeck & Carol Newman & Finn Tarp, 2007. "Land Titles and Rice Production in Vietnam," Discussion Papers 07-32, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    15. Perez, Carlos & Roncoli, Carla & Neely, Constance & Steiner, Jean L., 2007. "Can carbon sequestration markets benefit low-income producers in semi-arid Africa? Potentials and challenges," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 2-12, April.
    16. Larson, Janelle M. & Smith, Stephen M. & Abler, David G. & Trivelli, Carolina, 2000. "Land Titling In Peru: Is It Fulfilling Its Promise?," 2000 Annual meeting, July 30-August 2, Tampa, FL 21809, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    17. Barrett, Christopher B., 1996. "Fairness, stewardship and sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 11-17, October.
    18. Robinson, James A. & Srinivasan, T.N., 1993. "Long-term consequences of population growth: Technological change, natural resources, and the environment," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1175-1298, Elsevier.
    19. repec:bla:afrdev:v:29:y:2017:i:s2:p:179-197 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Kwabena Asiama & Rohan Bennett & Jaap Zevenbergen, 2019. "Towards Responsible Consolidation of Customary Lands: A Research Synthesis," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-22, October.
    21. Heath Henderson & Leonardo Corral & Eric Simning & Paul Winters, 2015. "Land Accumulation Dynamics in Developing Country Agriculture," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(6), pages 743-761, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation

    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:zbw:gdec09:18. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfselea.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.