Rethinking the causes of deforestation: Lessons from economic models

This article, which synthesizes the results of more than 140 economic model s analyzing the causes of tropical deforestation, raises significant doubts about many conventional hypotheses in the debate about deforestation. More roads, higher agricultural prices, lower wages, and a shortage of off-farm employment generally lead to more deforestation. How technical change, agr icultural input prices, household income levels, and tenure security affect deforestation-if at all-is unknown. The role of macroeconomic factors such as population growth, poverty reduction, national income, economic growth, and foreign debt is also ambiguous. This review, however, finds that polic y reforms included in current economic liberalization and adjustment effort s may increase the pressure on forests. Although the boom in deforestation modeling has yielded new insights, weak methodology and poor-quality data m ake the results of many models questionable.