This paper analyzes the determinants of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. From a model of optimal use, it derives and then estimates a deforestation equation on county-level data for the period 1978 to 1988. The data include a deforestation measure from satellite images, which is a great...

A tradable development rights (TDR) program focusing on biodiversity conservation faces a crucial problem defining which areas of habitat should be considered equivalent. Restricting the trading domain to a narrow area could boost the range of biodiversity conserved but could increase the...

Using census data from the Censo Agropecuario 1995-96, the authors map indicators of current land use, and agricultural productivity across Brazil's Legal Amazon, These data permit geographical resolution about ten times finer than afforded by"municipio"data, used in previous studies. The...

Conservation of high-biodiversity tropical forests is sometimes justified on the basis of assumed hydrological benefits - in particular, the reduction of flooding hazards for downstream floodplain populations. However, the"far-field"link between deforestation and distant flooding has been...

A"forest-hydrology-poverty nexus"hypothesis asserts that deforestation in poor upland areas simultaneously threatens biodiversity and increases the incidence of flooding, sedimentation, and other damaging hydrological processes. The authors use rough heuristics to assess the applicability of...

The authors critically review the literature on the net domestic (within-country) economic benefits of protecting tropical forests, focusing on hydrological benefits and the production of nontimber forest products. (The review does not consider other important classes of benefits, including...

While liberalizing key factor markets is a crucial step in the transition from a socialist control-economy to a market economy, the process can be stalled by imperfect information, high transaction costs, and covert resistance from entrenched interests. The authors study land-market adjustment...

According to Mint's"vent for surplus"theory, development of the economies of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand from the nineteenth century on depended on the natural advantage of large tracts of unused"empty land"with low population density and abundant natural resources of the type...

Since the early 1970s, industrial countries have enacted (or amended) many environmental laws and regulations to control and improve air and water quality. Developing countries are increasingly enacting similar legislation. But imposing a ceiling on a plant's emissions does not guarantee reduced...