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.

Request the link to join seminars online:  Email LEEP

Programme Autumn 2024

2nd Oct 2024: The Greener Gender: Women Politicians and Deforestation by Kathryn Baragwanath, University of Melbourne

Abstract: Women are often heralded as environmental leaders, yet the reasons for their presumed environmental commitment remain unclear. This paper examines the impact of women’s political representation on deforestation rates in Brazil. We argue that women, when elected to office, are more likely to drive improved environmental outcomes due to their reduced access to corrupt networks that influence the enforcement of environmental laws. We exploit close election regression discontinuity design in order to establish the causal effects of electing a woman on deforestation. Consistent with our theory, we find that electing a woman as mayor leads to significantly lower rates of deforestation during the woman’s time in office. We show that women are significantly less corrupt than men and are less likely to have connections to or receive campaign funding from the agricultural sector, which has vested interests in deforestation. This, in turn, drives the observed effects on deforestation. Additionally, we show suggestive evidence that these effects are not driven by differential preferences or ability (educational levels) between men and women. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that women’s political representation significantly reduces deforestation rates in the Brazil. This reduction is driven by women’s lower propensity for corruption and their decreased likelihood of being influenced by vested interests in the agricultural sector, the main driver of Brazilian deforestation.

16th Oct 2024: Beyond the Canopy: Sources of Satellite Data and Deforestation Policy Evaluation in Brazil by Nilesh Shinde, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Abstract: Satellite data is essential for monitoring deforestation and informing environmental policy, but the resolution of these data can significantly influence both policy implementation and evaluation. This study examines the impact of Brazil’s 2008 Blacklisting policy in the Amazon, using multiple satellite datasets. We find that the dataset traditionally used for both monitoring and evaluation systematically overestimates the policy’s effectiveness due to its inability to detect small deforestation patches. We argue that its dual role as both the monitoring tool for enforcement and the source of data for policy assessment, together with its coarse resolution, leads to additional issues caused by strategic adaptation. By analyzing over 500GB of data, equivalent to over 180 billion Landsat pixels, we identify significant discrepancies in deforestation behaviors captured by varying resolutions of satellite data. Our analysis reveals that deforesting agents strategically adapt their behavior in response to stricter monitoring, creating smaller patches that evade detection by coarser datasets. These findings highlight the importance of high-resolution data for evaluating the true effects of deforestation policies and addressing strategic adaptations that challenge enforcement efforts.

23rd Oct 2024: Paula Pereda, University of Sao Paulo

6th Nov 2024: Elisabeth Gsottbauer, London School of Economics

20th Nov 2024: Young Kim, University of Oxford

4th Dec 2024: Raphel Soubeyran, INRAE (National Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, France)

11th Dec 2024: Matt Cole, University of Birmingham