Cournot seminar – Julien Wolfesberger (AgroParisTech)

Event details :

We are pleased to welcome to the next session of the BETA Cournot seminar organised with the support of the FSEG on Friday 30/01 at 2:00pm:

Julien Wolfesberger (AgroParisTech)

who will present his paper entitled

Deforestation and Structural Transformation

Abstract:  This paper studies how structural transformation affects deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa using district-level data from 22 countries in the 2000s and 2010s. The relationship between non-agricultural growth and deforestation is a priori ambiguous: while migration of farmers to cities can reduce deforestation, rising urban demand for agricultural goods may increase it. We first build two shift-share instruments that provide evidence of both mechanisms. We then develop and quantify a three-sector spatial equilibrium model to estimate the impact of productivity changes on structural transformation and deforestation. Our results reveal meaningful heterogeneity — while productivity changes led to a relative increase in non-agricultural employment in almost all countries, its impact on deforestation varied across countries depending on the spatial distribution of productivity changes and their correlation with tree cover.