Cooperative norms and global deforestation

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore the role of cooperative norms and discount factors in global deforestation. Previous studies have revealed that these preferences lead to the better management of common-pool resources. However, since these case studies focus on small geographical areas, external validity remains an important issue. By using high-resolution satellite data and a unified measure of cooperative norms and discount factors, this study demonstrates that higher levels of cooperative norms are associated with a lower level of deforestation across the world, whereas no significant association is found between discount factors and deforestation.

KEYWORDS:

• Deforestation
• cooperative norm
• discount factor
• external validity

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Q23
• D63
• D91

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Since the tree cover loss is heavily dependent on the total tree cover area, I control $ln{F}_{2000,i}$ in the benchmark model to calculate Oster’s $\delta$.