Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia
<jats:p> This paper examines the link between electoral incentives and environmental degradation by exploiting a satellite dataset on 107,000 forest fires and 879 asynchronous district elections in Indonesia. Fires represent a cheap but illegal means of converting forested land to other uses,...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Economic Association
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144446 |
| _version_ | 1811096914824790016 |
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| author | Balboni, Clare Burgess, Robin Heil, Anton Old, Jonathan Olken, Benjamin A |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics Balboni, Clare Burgess, Robin Heil, Anton Old, Jonathan Olken, Benjamin A |
| author_sort | Balboni, Clare |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:p> This paper examines the link between electoral incentives and environmental degradation by exploiting a satellite dataset on 107,000 forest fires and 879 asynchronous district elections in Indonesia. Fires represent a cheap but illegal means of converting forested land to other uses, but they risk burning out of control and creating substantial negative environmental externalities. We find a significant electoral cycle in forest fires. Ignitions and area burned decline during election years but steeply increase in the year after. The results suggest that politicians may suppress this activity at times when it might particularly dent their electoral chances. </jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:51:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/144446 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:51:22Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | American Economic Association |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1444462023-01-10T16:25:05Z Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia Balboni, Clare Burgess, Robin Heil, Anton Old, Jonathan Olken, Benjamin A Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics <jats:p> This paper examines the link between electoral incentives and environmental degradation by exploiting a satellite dataset on 107,000 forest fires and 879 asynchronous district elections in Indonesia. Fires represent a cheap but illegal means of converting forested land to other uses, but they risk burning out of control and creating substantial negative environmental externalities. We find a significant electoral cycle in forest fires. Ignitions and area burned decline during election years but steeply increase in the year after. The results suggest that politicians may suppress this activity at times when it might particularly dent their electoral chances. </jats:p> 2022-08-25T17:49:43Z 2022-08-25T17:49:43Z 2021 2022-08-25T17:25:56Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144446 Balboni, Clare, Burgess, Robin, Heil, Anton, Old, Jonathan and Olken, Benjamin A. 2021. "Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia." American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings, 111. en 10.1257/PANDP.20211005 American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf American Economic Association American Economic Association |
| spellingShingle | Balboni, Clare Burgess, Robin Heil, Anton Old, Jonathan Olken, Benjamin A Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia |
| title | Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia |
| title_full | Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia |
| title_fullStr | Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia |
| title_short | Cycles of Fire? Politics and Forest Burning in Indonesia |
| title_sort | cycles of fire politics and forest burning in indonesia |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/144446 |
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