Agricultural change, rural labor markets, and forest clearing: An illustrative case from the Philippines

This paper studies the links between agricultural employment and upland act ivities at a tropical forest margin. A model of lowland agricultural produc tion is combined with a model of labor allocation on a representative uplan d farm to show how labor productivity, agricultural wages, and the returns from upland activities determine rates of forest clearing. Farm level data from the Philippines demonstrate how agricultural intensification-in the fo rm of lowland irrigation development-led to an increase in labor demand, an increase in employment of upland inhabitants, and small but statistically significant reductions in rates of forest clearing.