Explaining agriculture and forest dynamics : from economic structures to agents' expectations
(2021)
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- Abstract
- In the context of growing societal demands for land-based products, pressure on forest and agricultural area is increasing. This dissertation explains some of the complexities on agricultural and forest dynamics, namely, the indirect consequences of agricultural intensification and the interconnection with agricultural expansion, and the non-linear trajectories and feedbacks of agricultural and forest areas' trajectories through the exploration of forest transitions and agricultural frontiers. The following three research questions were explored: i) What are the causal relationships between changes in cropland intensity and expansion and contraction of cropland areas? ii) What are the causal relationships and indirect effects between changes in forest, agricultural areas and major socioeconomic drivers? iii) Which factors and conditions shape an agricultural frontier’s trajectory? Combining panel data econometric techniques, causality analysis, theoretical modelling and qualitative data from experts’ interviews, this dissertation shows the importance of distinguishing between short and long run dynamics. Furthermore, the results provide evidence of a rebound effect in low- and middle-income countries over the short run for several commodities with high price elasticity of demand and, a land sparing happened over the long run for some stable cereals. In contrast, results show a rejection of the Environmental Kuznets Curve for most of the countries groups and globally, with the exception of high-income countries in the long run and post-forest transition countries in the short run. Lastly, the forest scarcity and the state of forest policy were the most relevant forest transition pathways. When zoom in the agricultural frontier regions, this dissertation shows the important role of both, structural and human agency factors- namely, the agglomeration economies and the farmer’s expectations- on the frontier trajectory and it provides a framework to compare agricultural frontier areas according to their dependency on initial conditions or on both, initial conditions and actors’ expectations.
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Rodriguez Garcia, V. (2021). Explaining agriculture and forest dynamics : from economic structures to agents’ expectations. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/110489