Strategic Environmental Commitment and Climate Change in Africa: Evidence on Mining and Deforestation
| dc.contributor.author | Azomahou, Théophile T. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Ouédraogo, Mahamady | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-03-18T04:26:03Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-03-18T04:26:03Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2021-09 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This paper addresses two issues on the link between mining, deforestation and environmental policy in Africa using a panel data of 35 African countries spanning over 2001-2017. First, we study the relationship between mining and deforestation. Our findings suggest that mining increases deforestation while environmental policy contributes to reduce deforestation in mineral resource-rich countries. An increase in mineral rent by a one-point percentage of GDP leads to forest loss of about 50 km2 . Moreover, regional economic community has heterogeneous effects on deforestation consistent with the coordination policies. Second, we test the implication of these results for uncoordinated environmental policies using two measures: a de jure and a de facto environmental policy. Our results support that countries adopt a strategic behavior in response to the environmental policy of their neighbors. A 1% increase in neighbors’ environmental commitment increases one’s own environmental commitment by 0.3% and 0.8% for de jure and de facto respectively. We document that this strategic behavior leads to a race to the top for de jure environmental policy and a race to the bottom de facto environmental policy. As African countries increasingly engage in de jure environmental enforcement, their de facto efforts to mitigate climate change are slackening. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://publication.aercafricalibrary.org/handle/123456789/3237 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.subject | Deforestation, climate change, mining, environmental policy. | en_US |
| dc.title | Strategic Environmental Commitment and Climate Change in Africa: Evidence on Mining and Deforestation | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |