Browsing by Author "Binswanger, Hans P."

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Brazilian policies that encourage deforestation in the Amazon
    Binswanger, Hans P. (Elsevier, 1991)
    This paper shows that general tax policies, special tax incentives, the rules of land allocation, and the agricultural credit system all accelerate deforestation in the Amazon (region of Brazil). These policies increase the size of land holdings and reduce the chances of the poor to become farmers. The key provisions include: the virtual exemption of agricultural income from income taxation; rules of public land allocation that provide incentives for deforestation because the security of a claim is determined by land clearing; a progressive land tax that contains provisions that encourage the conversion of forest to crop land or pasture; a tax credit scheme towards corporate livestock ranches that subsidizes inefficient ranches established on cleared forest land; and subsidized credit available for SUDAM-approved ranches. These distorting provisions must be removed before afforestation projects and programmes can succeed. Afforestation and settlement projects should take into account the effect of these distortions, and the projects should thus have modest expectations. While reducing perverse economic incentives for deforestation will slow down the destruction of the Amazon forest, incentive policies alone are not enough. A coherent system of land use planning that sets aside more marginal lands in forest reserves and establishes biological reserves is also required. Even under the best incentive regimes, these reserves, as well as Indian reservations, will have to be protected by the power of the law and its enforcement agents. As part of this strategy, forest guards must be given greater incentives to enforce forest preservation laws currently in place [CAB Abstracts].
  • Policy-induced effects of natural resource degradation: The case of Colombia
    Heath, J.; Binswanger, Hans P. (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1998)
    A discussion of the Boserup hypothesis, which suggests that higher population and market access leads to improvements in natural resources, is followed by an illustration of the dependence of the Boserup effects on the policy environment that governs the investment incentives of farmers using recent studies of the Machakos district in Kenya and soil degradation in Ethiopia. Growth, the use of land and labour, and the degradation of marginal natural resources in Colombian agriculture are examined. The use of land and labour in Colombia is shown to be driven in highly inefficient directions by a variety of agricultural, land and rural finance policies and programmes which have prematurely and significantly reduced employment opportunities in the sector and have concentrated poverty in rural areas. Labour policies have not contributed in a major way to these adverse trends: the misallocation of land and labour and an exceptionally high female unemployment rate in rural Colombia are consequences of the same policy factors. Policy options for correcting the misallocation of resources, reducing poverty, and relieving the pressure of unsustainable farming on hills and in tropical forest areas with marginal land resources are explored [CAB Abstracts, 1998].
  • Thumbnail Image
    The World Bank's strategy for reducing poverty and hunger: A report to the development community
    Binswanger, Hans P.; Landell-Mills, Pierre (Washington D.C.: World Bank, 1995-03-31)
    The report is the result of discussions within the World Bank as well as of dialogues with NGOs and other international agencies concerned with poverty and hunger. It summarizes Bank policy on these issues and details a coordinated programme of actions that the Bank, in collaboration with other organizations, will promote in the next few years. The programme will be evaluated periodically and refined based on new knowledge and further consultations inside and outside the Bank. The report is divided into two parts: Part I discusses growth, poverty, and hunger; it focuses on the causes of hunger and on the World Bank's strategy for reducing poverty and hunger by promoting broad-based, employment-intensive growth and by providing basic social services to the poor. It also emphasizes the importance of investing in people and the poor's role in their own development. Part II, specific actions and programmes, deals with direct interventions that can cost-effectively reduce hunger or increase the incomes of the poor. (CAB Direct)