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Environment and Development

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021 3:45 PM - 5:45 PM (EST)

Hosted By: Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
  • Chair: Daniela Miteva, Ohio State University

Migration and Fuel Use in Rural Zambia

Yu Wu
,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Barbara Entwisle
,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Sudhanshu Handa
,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Sinai Cyrus
,
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Abstract

In low-and middle-income countries, opportunities to increase income are limited; in response, rural households may pursue a migration strategy to increase resources as well as to mitigate risk. This paper explores the implications for fuel use. Migrant remittances make it possible for households to move up the “energy ladder,” shifting from an exclusive reliance on fuelwood that households collect to an increasing use of more modern fuels that can be purchased. The loss of productive labor through migration may itself provoke a shift to purchased rather than collected fuel.
Despite the expectation that migration can influence fuel use, relatively few studies have examined household fuel use in relation to migration, and most of them are cross-sectional. This paper uses four waves of panel data collected as part of the Child Grant Program in rural Zambia to examine the connection between migration and the choice of cooking fuel. Importantly, this paper not only investigates migration, but also considers migration within the context of household change.
Our empirical analysis focuses on the marginal effects of migration and other changes in household size and composition to fuel use. We examine household change with greater specificity, from net overall change to a fuller decomposition that distinguishes between 1) returned migrants, births, and other entries into the household and 2) migrants to urban areas, departing members to local areas and other exits from the household. Our results suggest that the number of returned migrants is significantly and positively related to the probability of using fuelwood as the main source of cooking fuel. The effects of out-migration are consistently stronger for longer-distance migration to urban areas as opposed to local moves. These results support our hypotheses that migration has a significant effect on household fuel use and provoke households to move up the “energy ladder”.

Environmental Policy and the Value of Property Rights in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado: Evidence from a New Database on Land Sales

Fanny Moffette
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Daniel J. Phaneuf
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Lisa Rausch
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Holly K. Gibbs
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Abstract

Lack of property are associated with lower investment, development and welfare. In the Brazilian Amazon, insecure property rights have led to civil conflicts, which should provide incentives for landowners to seek formal title. However, compliance with environmental regulations may increase the costs associated with formal titling. In this paper, we construct a novel database on land values in Brazil to measure the market value of formal title to land.
Using online advertisements of sale offers scraped from a widely used seller’s platform, we first estimate a duration model that follows the sequence of weekly offers for a specific property until it transacts. We then estimate a hedonic model that regresses the last offer price on property attributes such as the types of production at the farm, land characteristics, structure amenities, and included capital, as well as spatial and temporal fixed effects. We use our estimates to examine how property rights capitalize into land prices – both on average and conditional on environmental policy contexts – across the Amazon and Cerrado biomes. Our results imply low net benefits from property rights. Brazilian regulations (i.e. the Forest Code) aimed at decreasing deforestation partly explain the lower demand for entitled properties with high remaining forest cover. This is particularly salient in the Amazon biome, where the environmental requirements and expected penalties for violation are much higher. Estimates of the implicit price for the property right attribute, and its variation across Forest Code requirements, are consistent with the duration model’s finding that compliant properties sell faster if they do not have property rights.
In ongoing work, we are continuously running our scraping algorithm to expand the database, updating our results and producing a unique resource for understanding spatially explicit land price dynamics – and their response to policy shocks – in Brazil.

Lease Splitting and Dirty Entrants: The Unintended Consequences of India’s Environmental Clearance Reform

Anca Balietti
,
Heidelberg University
Anant Sudarshan
,
University of Chicago
Rohini Pande
,
Yale University
Lucy Page
,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Kevin Rowe
,
Harvard University

Abstract

Mining industries form a significant share of the industrial landscape of many poor countries. At the same time, mining activities have well-documented negative externalities: the air, land, and water pollution associated with mining has large health impacts and the destruction of forest cover can affect livelihoods. Using a comprehensive dataset on mining lease activities for India over the time period 2000 - 2013, we assess a landmark change in India’s environmental clearance process, intended to increase stringency, democratic participation, and effectiveness. The reform induced strategic behavior by mining companies which, in turn, had perverse environmental impacts. First, the average mine size fell with significant bunching just below 5 hectares, a cutoff below which stringent regulatory requirements were waived. This rise in small mines was environmentally costly – after the 2006 Reform, both vegetation and air quality were negatively affected, at least over the short- to medium-term.

Market distortions and productive responses to extreme heat: evidence from Ugandan farmers

Fernando Aragon
,
Simon Fraser University
Juan Pablo Rud
,
Royal Holloway University of London

Abstract

This paper examines whether market distortions affect subsistence farmers’ ability
to cope with high temperatures. We use a rich dataset from Ugandan farmers that
combines household panel data with satellite imagery. Then, we estimate the effects
of temperature on farmers’ input use allowing for heterogeneous effects by land tenure
regime (customary vs. non-customary land rights). We find that farmer responses to
extreme heat differ by type of land tenure: increased input use in areas with customary
rights, but decrease in areas with non-customary land rights. There are, however, no
significant differences on the effect of extreme heat on total output. Our findings
suggest that market distortions (such as imperfect property rights) can affect farmers’
ability to mitigate weather shocks.
Discussant(s)
Valerie Mueller
,
Arizona State University
Gary Libecap
,
University of California-Santa Barbara
Meera Mahadevan
,
University of California-Irvine
Daniela Miteva
,
Ohio State University
JEL Classifications
  • Q5 - Environmental Economics