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Category: Secondary Data

Road Impacts in Brazilian Amazonia

Published January 1, 2008 by Alex Pfaff
Alexander Pfaff, Alisson Barbieri, Thomas Ludewigs, Frank Merry, Stephen Perz, Eustaquio Reis
Chapter in “Amazonia and Global Change” book (American Geophysical Union, linked to the NASA LBA project)

PDF link iconWe examine the evidence on Amazonian road impacts with a strong emphasis on context. Impacts of a new road, on either deforestation or socioeconomic outcomes, depend upon the conditions into which roads are placed. Conditions that matter include the biophysical setting, such as slope, rainfall, and soil quality, plus externally determined socioeconomic factors like national policies, exchange rates, and the global prices of beef and soybeans. Influential conditions also include all prior infrastructural investments and clearing rates. Where development has already arrived, with significant economic activity and clearing, roads may decrease forest less and raise output more than where development is arriving, while in pristine areas, short-run clearing may be lower than immense long-run impacts. Such differences suggest careful consideration of where to invest further in transport.

 

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Road Investments, Spatial Spillovers and Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon

Published January 3, 2007 by Alex Pfaff
Alexander Pfaff, Juan Robalino, Robert Walker, Steven Aldrich, Marcellus Caldas, Eustaquio Reis, Stephen Perz, Claudio Bohrer, Eugenio Arima, William Laurance, Kathryn Kirby
Journal of Regional Science 2007 volume 47, no. 1, 2007, pp. 109–123

PDF link iconUnderstanding the impact of road investments on deforestation is part of a complete evaluation of the expansion of infrastructure for development.We find evidence of spatial spillovers from roads in the Brazilian Amazon: deforestation rises in the census tracts that lack roads but are in the same county as and within 100 km of a tract with a new paved or unpaved road. At greater distances from the new roads the evidence is mixed, including negative coefficients of inconsistent significance between 100 and 300 km, and if anything, higher neighbor deforestation at distances over 300 km.

 

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Costa Rica’s Payment for Environmental Services Program: Intention, Implementation, and Impact

Published January 2, 2007 by Alex Pfaff
G. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, Alexander Pfaff, Juan Robalino, Judson Boomhower
Conservation Biology 2007 volume 21, number 5, 1165–1173

PDF link iconWe evaluated the intention, implementation, and impact of Costa Rica’s program of payments for environmental services (PSA), which was established in the late 1990s. Payments are given to private landowners who own land in forest areas in recognition of the ecosystem services their land provides. To characterize the distribution of PSA in Costa Rica, we combined remote sensing with geographic information system databases and then used econometrics to explore the impacts of payments on deforestation. Payments were distributed broadly across ecological and socioeconomic gradients, but the 1997–2000 deforestation rate was not significantly lower in areas that received payments. Other successful Costa Rican conservation policies, including those prior to the PSA program, may explain the current reduction in deforestation rates. The PSA program is a major advance in the global institutionalization of ecosystem investments because few, if any, other countries have such a conservation history and because much can be learned from Costa Rica’s experiences.

 

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Will buying tropical forest carbon benefit the poor? evidence from Costa Rica

Published January 1, 2007 by Alex Pfaff
Alexander Pfaff, Suzi Kerr, Leslie Lipper, Romina Cavatassi, Benjamin Davis, Joanna Hendy, G. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa
Land Use Policy 24 (2007) 600–610

PDF link iconWe review claims linking both payments for carbon and poverty to deforestation. We examine these effects empirically for Costa Rica during the late 20th century using an econometric approach that addresses the irreversibilities in deforestation. We find significant effects of the relative returns to forest on deforestation rates. Thus, carbon payments would induce  conservation and also carbon sequestration, and if land users were poor could conserve forest while addressing rural poverty. We note that the poor appear to be marginalized in the sense of living where land profitability is lower. Those areas also have more forest. We find that poorer areas may have a higher supply response to payments, but even without this effect poor areas might be included and benefit more due to higher (per capita) forest area. They might be included less due to transactions costs, though. Unless the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol is modified in its implementation to allow credits from avoided  deforestation, such benefits are likely to be limited.

 

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Estimating Spatial Interactions in Deforestation Decisions

Published January 1, 2007 by Alex Pfaff
Juan Robalino, Alexander Pfaff, G. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa
Frontiers of Biodiversity Economics, Cambridge University Press

PDF link iconThis chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 describes a simple model of interactions in the context of deforestation, based on an equilibrium in beliefs about the neighbours’ actions. Section 3 discusses empirical issues in measurement of interactions and the benefits of using an instrumental variable approach. Data requirements for analysing neighbours’ interactions in deforestation decisions are discussed in section 4. Finally, results for two regions within Costa Rica, as well as discussion of how to obtain the equilibria once the parameters of the model are estimated, are presented in section 5.

 

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Big Field, Small Potatoes: an empirical assessment of EPA's Self-Audit Policy

Published January 2, 2004 by Alex Pfaff
Alexander Pfaff, Chris William Sanchirico
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (2004) volume 23 number 3: 415–432

PDF link iconEnvironmental self-auditing is said to deserve and require encouragement. Although firms can audit themselves more cheaply and effectively than regulators, they are deterred for fear that information they uncover will be used against them. To reduce this disincentive, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Audit Policy lowers punitive fines when firms promptly disclose and correct self-discovered violations. While some contend that the Audit Policy is inadequate, EPA touts its success based on the policy’s track record. Our examination of that track record leads us to question EPA’s claim. Comparing the violations in these cases with those detected by standard EPA enforcement suggests that the typical self-audited violation is relatively minor. Cases arising under the Policy are more likely to concern reporting violations and less likely to concern emissions. The relative insignificance of self-audited violations raises a number of policy questions, including whether the Audit Policy should be revised to play a larger role in enforcement.

 

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