The European Union designates 26% of its landmass as a protected area, limiting economic development to favor biodiversity. This paper uses the staggered introduction of protected-area policies between 1985 and 2020 to study the selection of land for protection and the causal effect of...

Exclusion zones, like protected areas or setback distances, are the most common policy instrument to mitigate environmental impacts of human land-use, including the deployment of renewable energy sources. While exclusion zones may provide environmental benefits, they may also bring about...

In this paper, we extend the well known result that hyperbolically discounting agents tend to postpone costs into the future. In a simple model we show that, without commitment to the ex ante optimal plan, no investment in environmental protection is undertaken over the whole time horizon, no...

Attenuation of existing land use conflicts is often approached by means of economic compensations. We estimate conflicts in the High-Andean Plains System of the Antioquia Department, comparing land use restrictions with the dynamic of the agricultural frontier. Compensations are calculated as a...

Slash-and-burn agriculture in poor tropical countries is one of the main causes of conservation payments, slash-and-burn agriculture, biodiversity deforestation, leading to environmental costs and to potential externality effects on lowland agricultural productivity. Under innovative...

Deforestation has long been heavily studied; several proximate and underlying causes behind the global decrease of forest extent have been discussed. However, systematic analyses of positive examples are sparse, even if forestation is happening in almost 70 countries (on approximately 40% of the...

We investigate how public opinion along with the electoral process affect the strength of environmental fiscal policies in the European Union (EU). Our analysis accounts for a set of economic, institutional, and political factors that can affect environmental taxes and expenditures. We pursue a...