Browsing by Author "Barbier, E."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Agricultural pricing and environmental degradation
    Barbier, E.; Burgess, J. (The Policy Research Dissemination Center, 1992)
    Changes in pricing policies are not enough to encourage poor farmers to reduce resource degradation. Other approaches are also needed, such as providing better research and extension advice, improving property rights and management, and establishing more secure tenure or access rights. Just because we do not always understand the economic and social factors determining incentive effects does not mean they do not exist.
  • Economic growth and environmental degradation: The Environmental Kuznets Curve and sustainable development
    Stern, D.; Common, M.; Barbier, E. (Elsevier Science Ltd., 1996)
    In this paper we critically examine the concept of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). It proposes that there is an inverted U-shape relation between environmental degradation and income per capita, so that, eventually, growth reduces the environmental impact of economic activity. The concept is dependent on a model of the economy in which there is no feedback from the quality of the environment to production possibilities, and in which trade has a neutral effect on environmental degradation. The actual violation of these assumptions gives rise to fundamental problems in estimating the parameters of an EKC. The paper identifies other econometric problems with estimates of the EKC, and reviews a number of empirical studies. The inference from some such EKC estimates that further development will reduce environmental degradation is dependent on the assumption that world per capita income is normally distributed when in fact median income is far below mean income. We carry out simulations combining EKC estimates from the literature with World Bank forecasts for economic growth for individual countries, aggregating over countries to derive the global impact. Within the horizon of the Bank's forecast (2025) global emissions of SOI continue to increase. Forest loss stabilizes before the end of the period but tropical deforestation continues at a constant rate throughout the period.
  • The economics of tropical deforestation
    Barbier, E.; Burgess, J. (Blackwell Publishers Ltd. Oxford, UK and Malden, MA, USA., 2001)
    This paper provides a survey of 'first wave' economic studies of tropical deforestation and land use. These studies of tropical forest land conversion are generally at the cross-country level. We also conduct a synthesis cross-country analysis of tropical agricultural land expansion. The results show that agricultural development is the main factor determining land expansion, but institutional factors have an important influence. Income effects tend to vary from region to region, and do not always display an 'Environmental Kuznets Curve' relationship. This paper also provides a review of the more recent 'second wave' economic studies of tropical deforestation that model and analyse the economic behaviour of agricultural households, timber concessionaires and other agents within tropical forest countries who affect deforestation through their land use decisions. Further work in this area requires more country-level and local case studies into tropical deforestation and land use.
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    Structural adjustment programme, deforestation and biodiversity loss in Ghana
    Benhin, J.; Barbier, E. (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004)
    An empirical investigation is undertaken into the impact of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on forest and biodiversity loss in Ghana between the period 1965-1995. In the first part of the analysis, a four-equation recursive model, consisting of forest loss, cocoa land, maize land and timber production equations, is employed to examine the impact of the SAP on forest loss. The first equation is a function of the last three, and the last three are functions of mainly prices. Piecewise linear and switching regression approaches are used to distinguish between the influence of the post from the pre-adjustment impacts. These results together with a specie-forest area relationship are used to investigate the impact of the SAP on biodiversity loss. The overall results indicate that cocoa land expansion and timber production, but not maize land expansion, are the significant causes of forest loss in Ghana. However, the impact on forest loss in the postadjustment period was reduced. The rate of biodiversity loss also reduced in the post-adjustment period. Changes in relative output and input prices due to the SAP may have played a significant role in the reduced impact of agricultural and timber related deforestation and biodiversity loss in the post-adjustment period.