What Drives Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon?
Open accessAbstract
While previous empirical analysis of deforestation focused on population, this paper builds from a model of land use which suggests many determinants of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. I derive a deforestation equation from this model and test a number of those factors using county-level data for the period 1978–1988. The data include a satellite deforestation measure which allows improved within-country analysis. The major empirical finding is the significance of both land characteristics (such as soil quality and vegetation density) and factors affecting transport costs (such as distance to major markets and both own- and neighboring-county roads). Government development projects also appear to affect clearing, although credit infrastructure does not. However, as such policies themselves may be functions of other factors, estimated effects of policies must be interpreted with some caution. Finally, the population density does not have a significant effect on deforestation when many potential determinants are included. However, a quadratic specification reveals a more robust result: the first migrants to a county have greater impact than later immigrants. This implies that the distribution of population affects its impact.
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Pfaff (1999) and Hargrave and Kis-Katos (2013) estimate the effect of different potential drivers of deforestation by exploring panel data at the regional level for Brazil.
“Pfaff (1999) and Hargrave and Kis-Katos (2013) estimate the effect of different potential drivers of deforestation by exploring panel data at the regional level for Brazil”
From The Effect of Rural Credit on Deforestation: Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon (2020) · cites this paper as Pfaff (1999)
Road density is one of the most relevant determinants of deforestation in the Amazon region.
“Finally, we test for dynamic effects by interacting policies with road density, which has been widely acknowledged as one of the most relevant determinants of deforestation in the Amazon region (Chomitz and Gray, 1996; Angelsen and Kaimowitz, 1999; Pfaff, 1999; Chomitz and Thomas, 2003; Pfaff et al., 2007).”
From The Effect of Rural Credit on Deforestation: Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon (2020) · cites this paper as Pfaff, 1999
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Cites
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- Authors
- Pfaff, A. S. P.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Pfaff, Alexander S.P.
- Venue
- Journal of Environmental Economics and Management
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1999-01
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 26-43
- ISSN
- 0095-0696 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2138727097
- Cited by
- 571
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 24 · 2020: 12 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 26 · 2017: 32 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 25 · 2012: 34
- FWCI
- 17.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
- Keywords
- deforestation, Brazilian Amazon, land use models, soil quality, vegetation density, transportation costs, distance to market, road infrastructure, government development projects, credit infrastructure, population density, immigration
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