Environmental effects of development programs: Experimental evidence from West African dryland forests

Simon Heß; Dany Jaimovich; Matthias Schündeln

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102737

Environmental effects of development programs: Experimental evidence from West African dryland forests

Simon Heß
, Dany Jaimovich
, Matthias Schündeln

Department of Economics

Publications: Contribution to journal › Article › Peer Reviewed

Abstract

Environmental effects of development programs are the subject of an ongoing debate. We contribute to this debate by studying effects of a randomly allocated, nationwide development program in The Gambia on deforestation, focusing on parts of the country with meaningful baseline forest cover. Our main finding is that the program caused significant increases in annual forest loss. Conservative benchmark estimates imply that 5.6% of all forest loss occurring within 1km of treatment villages during the eight post-program years resulted from the program. Accounting for spillovers, we estimate that the program explains about one quarter of the forest loss around all villages. Looking at possible channels, we find moderate treatment effects of the development program on household wealth and livestock holdings. Further, villages with limited access to markets drive the effect of the program on deforestation.

Original language	English
Article number	102737
Journal	Journal of Development Economics
Volume	153
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102737
Publication status	Published - Nov 2021

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany through project 250842093 . Jaimovich thanks the financial support from ANID Chile through FONDECYT Iniciacion project 11190283 . We benefited from technical support by Joachim Eisenberg in the management of the GIS data and excellent research assistance by Francisco Barba, Paul Schmidtke and Christopher Warner.

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

502008 Development economics
502042 Environmental economics

Keywords

Community-driven development
Deforestation
Environmental impacts of development interventions
The Gambia

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10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102737

Cite this

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title = "Environmental effects of development programs: Experimental evidence from West African dryland forests",

abstract = "Environmental effects of development programs are the subject of an ongoing debate. We contribute to this debate by studying effects of a randomly allocated, nationwide development program in The Gambia on deforestation, focusing on parts of the country with meaningful baseline forest cover. Our main finding is that the program caused significant increases in annual forest loss. Conservative benchmark estimates imply that 5.6\% of all forest loss occurring within 1km of treatment villages during the eight post-program years resulted from the program. Accounting for spillovers, we estimate that the program explains about one quarter of the forest loss around all villages. Looking at possible channels, we find moderate treatment effects of the development program on household wealth and livestock holdings. Further, villages with limited access to markets drive the effect of the program on deforestation.",

keywords = "Community-driven development, Deforestation, Environmental impacts of development interventions, The Gambia",

author = "Simon He{\ss} and Dany Jaimovich and Matthias Sch{\"u}ndeln",

note = "Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge financial support from DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany through project 250842093 . Jaimovich thanks the financial support from ANID Chile through FONDECYT Iniciacion project 11190283 . We benefited from technical support by Joachim Eisenberg in the management of the GIS data and excellent research assistance by Francisco Barba, Paul Schmidtke and Christopher Warner. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Elsevier B.V.",

year = "2021",

month = nov,

doi = "10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102737",

language = "English",

volume = "153",

journal = "Journal of Development Economics",

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AU - Heß, Simon

AU - Jaimovich, Dany

AU - Schündeln, Matthias

N1 - Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge financial support from DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), Germany through project 250842093 . Jaimovich thanks the financial support from ANID Chile through FONDECYT Iniciacion project 11190283 . We benefited from technical support by Joachim Eisenberg in the management of the GIS data and excellent research assistance by Francisco Barba, Paul Schmidtke and Christopher Warner. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2021/11

Y1 - 2021/11

N2 - Environmental effects of development programs are the subject of an ongoing debate. We contribute to this debate by studying effects of a randomly allocated, nationwide development program in The Gambia on deforestation, focusing on parts of the country with meaningful baseline forest cover. Our main finding is that the program caused significant increases in annual forest loss. Conservative benchmark estimates imply that 5.6% of all forest loss occurring within 1km of treatment villages during the eight post-program years resulted from the program. Accounting for spillovers, we estimate that the program explains about one quarter of the forest loss around all villages. Looking at possible channels, we find moderate treatment effects of the development program on household wealth and livestock holdings. Further, villages with limited access to markets drive the effect of the program on deforestation.

AB - Environmental effects of development programs are the subject of an ongoing debate. We contribute to this debate by studying effects of a randomly allocated, nationwide development program in The Gambia on deforestation, focusing on parts of the country with meaningful baseline forest cover. Our main finding is that the program caused significant increases in annual forest loss. Conservative benchmark estimates imply that 5.6% of all forest loss occurring within 1km of treatment villages during the eight post-program years resulted from the program. Accounting for spillovers, we estimate that the program explains about one quarter of the forest loss around all villages. Looking at possible channels, we find moderate treatment effects of the development program on household wealth and livestock holdings. Further, villages with limited access to markets drive the effect of the program on deforestation.

KW - Community-driven development

KW - Deforestation

KW - Environmental impacts of development interventions

KW - The Gambia

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85114331996

U2 - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102737

DO - 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2021.102737

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85114331996

SN - 0304-3878

VL - 153

JO - Journal of Development Economics

JF - Journal of Development Economics

M1 - 102737

ER -

Environmental effects of development programs: Experimental evidence from West African dryland forests

Abstract

Funding

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

Keywords

Access to Document

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