Deforestation and the real exchange rate

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Arcand, Jean-Louis; Guillaumont, Patrick; Jeanneney, Sylviane Guillaumont
• 署名单位: Universite Clermont Auvergne (UCA)
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2007.02.004
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 242-262
• 关键词: deforestation; Real effective exchange rate; institutions

摘要

Deforestation is a phenomenon that has largely been concentrated in the developing world. We construct a theoretical model of deforestation that focuses on the factors affecting the incentives to transform forested land into agricultural land. We show that: (i) lower discount rates and stronger institutions decrease deforestation; (ii) a depreciation in the real exchange rate increases deforestation in developing countries whereas the opposite obtains in developed countries; (iii) paradoxically, better institutions may exacerbate the deleterious impact of a depreciation in developing countries. These hypotheses are tested on an annual sample of 101 countries over the 1961-1988 period, and are not rejected by the data. Our results suggest that short-term macroeconomic policy, institutional factors, and the interaction between the two, are potentially important determinants of environmental outcomes. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.