PhD seminar – Latif Sokoundou
The 2026/05/20
From 3:00pm to 4:30pm
Event details :
Latif Sokoundou will present his paper entitled:
The impact of EU Accession on Forest Loss
Evidence from Grid-Cell Data
Abstract: European Union (EU) enlargement creates a complex tension between economic integration and environmental conservation. This paper evaluates the causal impact of the 2004, 2007, and 2013 accession waves on forest loss in Central and Eastern Europe. Leveraging granular grid-cell data, we use Entropy Balancing along with a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach to isolate the effect of membership from structural differences. Contrary to the expected protective role of EU mandates, we find that accession increases the likelihood of forest loss by 2.6 percentage points. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this effect is entirely concentrated in areas geared toward production-oriented forestry. Furthermore, we test the transmission channels and show that the effect is primarily driven by an increase in industrial roundwood exports. These results suggest that the economic pressures of the Single Market have outweighed EU conservation efforts in the region.
His paper will be commented by Derya Keles (research engineer, INRAE, BETA, UL) and Emilie Cocco (PhD student, INRAE, BETA, UL).
