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A mix of public policy and market interventions in the mid‐2000s led to historic reductions in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The collateral impact of these forest conservation policies on agricultural production is still poorly understood, though evidence is sorely needed given the economic importance of agriculture in Brazil and many other forest‐rich countries. We construct a ten‐year panel dataset for agriculture and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (2004–2014), and use two complementary difference‐in‐difference strategies to estimate the causal effect of one of Brazil's flagship anti‐deforestation strategies, the Priority List (Municípios Prioritários), on agricultural production and productivity in three sectors: beef, dairy, and crop production. We find no evidence for trade‐offs between agriculture and forest conservation. Rather, reductions in deforestation in priority municipalities were paired with increases in cattle production and productivity (cattle/hectare), consistent with a model where policy‐induced decreases in the value of clearing new land cause credit‐constrained farmers to shift investments from deforestation to capital investments in farming. The policy had no consistent effect on dairy or crop production. Our results suggest that in regions with large yield gaps and where technologies for increasing yields are readily available, efforts to constrain agricultural expansion through improved forest conservation policies may induce intensification.

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Empirical evidence shows that low-income households spend a high share of their income on pollution-intensive goods. This fuels the concern that an environmental tax reform could be regressive. We employ a framework which accounts for the distributional effect of environmental taxes and the recycling of the revenues on both households and firms to quantify changes in the optimal tax structure and the equity impacts of an environmental tax reform. We characterize when an optimal environmental tax reform does not increase inequality, even if the tax system before the reform is optimal from a non-environmental point of view. If the tax system before the reform is calibrated to stylized data-and is thus non-optimal-we find that there is a large scope for inequality reduction, even if the government is restricted in its recycling options.

Research Questions How was a system of tracking and feedback implemented to achieve a high percentage of treatment delivered as intended to residences targeted for super cocooning, and how successful was the tracking in ensuring implementation of the cocooning program? Data The case study of implementing a tracking system for notifying neighbours of burglary victims is based on intensive tracking of all 43 burglaries in a 2-month summer period in one small area of Greater Manchester. Method The system of tracking featured a written paper and pencil report on each residence visited, with entries audited against GPS records of where each reporting officer was located at the times and places listed in the written report. Body-worn video records were used to triangulate the written and GPS records. The policy tracked was the goal of face-to-face contact with residents of four houses on either side of each burgled residence, plus the initially burgled home, or nine visits per burglary. Results Of the potential 387 homes to visit after each burglary, only 266 occupied dwellings were identified, of which 230 (93%) were visited by Police Community Service Officers (PCSOs) assigned, 141 of them within 2 days after the initial burglary (61%). These visits and second visits resulted in 154 face-to-face discussions warning occupants about an elevated risk of burglary (58%). No contact or leaflet at all was delivered to 12.5% of all potential properties. The case study showed that the tracking and feedback was instrumental in delivering these outputs. Conclusion The time and effort needed for supervisors to track the delivery of an evidencebased, tested crime prevention programme does not exceed supervisory time available, making tracking systems of this kind a feasible element of police business as usual.