The LEEP Seminar Series brings together scholars from around the world to share their research in environmental, resource and energy economics, through a friendly and collaborative platform.

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Programme Autumn 2025

26th Nov 2025, 14:00-15:00: Physically-based hydrological modelling of UK river flows under climate change. How reliable are our model predictions? by Dr Steve Birkinshaw Newcastle University

5th Nov 2025, 14:00-15:00: Tropical Forest Conservation and Labour Markets. Evidence from Sierra Leone by Maarten Voors, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

Abstract: Protecting tropical forests and avoiding deforestation offer great potential to cut carbon emissions and mitigate climate change. Many programs, aim to “divert” labor away from forest clearing towards alternative (economic) activities. We use a difference-in-difference framework to evaluate the long run impact of a large-scale voluntary REDD+ project in Sierra Leone on both conservation and socio-economic outcomes. Using a panel of both satellite imagery and detailed household surveys we find that 10 years after the REDD+ project stared, the program on average helped slow deforestation. The program did not change economic well-being and conservation attitudes. To understand mechanisms, we develop a theoretical model, which we take to the data and find suggestive evidence that conservation impacts critically depends on the degree to which labour and capital are constrained.

15th Oct 2025, 14:00-15:00: Controlling land-use change with a nature loss fee by Anne-Sophie Crépin, Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Stockholm

Abstract: Connections between ecosystems can contribute to the spread of regime shifts to other ecosystems, potentially creating cascading effects.  Regime shifts are large, abrupt and persistent changes in ecosystems’ structure and functions. They can occur in many types of ecosystems and substantially influence services that these ecosystems supply and on which people’s welfare depends. Hence the need to scrutinize these cascading dynamics and their bearing on ecosystem outcomes and welfare targets. Here, we explore the impacts of such connections on the interplay between people’s welfare and the ecosystems they use. To overcome limited data availability, we build a modeling framework that represents changes over time in connected ecosystems that can exhibit regime shifts. We focus on ecosystem services such as pollution absorption or resource production. This approach enables a wide range of modeling experiments by varying functions and parameters that characterize the dynamics within and between ecosystems, as well as socioeconomic parameters such as prices and discount rate. We use this framework to investigate ecosystem and welfare impacts of these connections. We identify clear mechanisms, through which connectivity can either trigger or prevent a regime shift in a specific ecosystem. We also identify the ecological and socio-economic characteristics that drive the outcome in either direction depending on whether the ecosystems are optimally managed or not managed at all. Finally, we present more detailed results for special cases of connected lakes when the connections between ecosystems are small.

October 8th 2025: The Efficacy of Conservation Expenditures: Evidence From Local Ballot Measures by Anouch Missirian, Toulouse School of Economics

Abstract: What should we expect if we increase biodiversity financing, as global treaties are calling for, by $200 billion a year? To better inform conservation expenditure policies, we estimate the effect of conservation expenditures on local biodiversity and land cover using voting data on local ballots that allocate funding towards a variety of conservation purposes. Our analysis compares ballots that narrowly passed or failed using a dynamic regression discontinuity design. We estimate that following a conservation ballot passing, bird abundance increases by 0.3 standard deviation, and green vegetation cover increases by five percent. In dollar terms, we estimate that increasing conservation expenditures by $25 million leads to approximately 0.2 standard deviations higher bird abundance and three percent higher green vegetation. Further analysis reveals that one state, which accounts for roughly 20 percent of the ballots, is solely driving this result: New Jersey. Our findings highlight that conservation spending can have meaningful impacts on biodiversity, however, context and institutional details are highly important.

September 24th 2025: Controlling land-use change with a nature loss fee by Professor Lassi Ahlvik, University of Helsinki

Abstract: We study the Pigouvian solution for biodiversity loss, a fee levied on nature loss from deforestation. Combining Finnish data on land-use changes and property price transactions with a biodiversity index, we quantify the economic and environmental impacts of a ‘nature loss fee’. We examine five biodiversity-weighting approaches to fee structures and their effects across urban-rural categories and regions. We find that a uniform area-based fee on deforestation significantly reduces the loss of forest and biodiversity. An approach targeting biodiversity hotspots effectively preserves them at a relatively low cost, while a middle-ground policy based on a linearly weighted area-and-quality measure balances deforestation reduction and biodiversity preservation across regions. Comparing these fees to command-and-control policies, we find that nature loss fees achieve biodiversity preservation at significantly lower costs.

September 4, 2025 – Accounting for Nature and Biodiversity Workshop, University of Exeter

This workshop brought together leading researchers and practitioners working toward improved environmental economic statistics to explore how best to integrate biodiversity and ecosystem services into the frameworks that guide economic policy.