Macro-scale economic influences on tropical forest depletion

Ecological Unequal Exchange: International Trade and Uneven Utilization of Environmental Space in the World System

“…Previous research suggests rural population growth contributes to deforestation across world-system positions, even net the effects of total population change (Kick et al 1996). [1980][1981][1982][1983][1984][1985][1986][1987][1988][1989][1990] Previous research supports the contention that economic growth promotes deforestation within LDCs (Capistrano and Kiker 1995;Ehrhardt-Martinez 1998) although Jorgenson (2006) uncovers a significant association with reforestation over the 1990-2000 period.…”

“…Research suggests increasing economic growth per capita is positively associated with deforestation within LDCs (Capistrano and Kiker 1995;Ehrhardt-Martinez 1998) as is level of GDP per capita (Rudel 1989). Other research, however, suggests the positive effect of economic growth or change in GDP per capita upon deforestation is disproportionately strong within the semi-core and semiperiphery, or the middle ranges of the world-system (Burns et al 2003).…”

Does high indebtedness increase natural resource exploitation?

“…Only in maximum likelihood (ML) estimation, which can be problematic in small samples (Long and Freese, 2001: 65), do they find that one million US$ of debt typically leads to 8.4 hectares of annual deforestation in Asia and 27.2 hectares of deforestation in Latin America. Capistrano (1994) and Capistrano and Kiker (1995), on the other hand, find in OLS estimation that a higher debt service to export ratio is associated with less rather than more forest depletion for the period 1972-1975 only and is not statistically significantly related to forest depletion during either 1967-1971, 1976-1980, or 1981-1985. Shafik (1994 also finds debt per capita to be highly insignificant in his OLS estimation analysis of the average annual rate of deforestation over the period .…”

The underlying causes of forest decline

“…Kahn and McDonald (1995) examined the debt and deforestation link in 68 countries over the period [1981][1982][1983][1984][1985] and concluded that debt service had a significant role in deforestation. But research by Capistrano and Kiker (1995), using data for 45 countries over the 1967-1985 period, reached the opposite conclusion. Methodological differences between the two studies may partly explain these contradictory results.…”