The Cost of Forest Preservation in the Brazilian Amazon: The "Arc of Deforestation"
We estimate the trade-off between agricultural production and forest preservation for the municipalities in Brazil's agricultural frontier, the so-called 'arc of deforestation,' using census and deforestation data for 2006. We use a nonparametric directional output distance function t...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Western Agricultural Economics Association
2019-09-01
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| Series: | Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/292328 |
| Summary: | We estimate the trade-off between agricultural production and forest preservation for the municipalities in Brazil's agricultural frontier, the so-called 'arc of deforestation,' using census and deforestation data for 2006. We use a nonparametric directional output distance function that allows us to identify the gradients of the production possibility frontier, which are the trade-offs of interest. We found that, on average, $979 is forgone in annual livestock, timber, and grain revenues to conserve 1 hectare of forest. This translates, ceteris paribus, to an average present value of costs to permanently sequester CO2 of $16.36/t, higher than most previous estimates. |
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| ISSN: | 1068-5502 2327-8285 |