Trade Liberalization And Land Use Changes: Explaining The Expansion Of Afforested Land In Chil
Enviado por ruthsotomora • 22 de Mayo de 2014 • 3.745 Palabras (15 Páginas) • 580 Visitas
Trade Liberalization and Land Use Changes: Explaining the Expansion
of Afforested Land in Chile
Mario E. Niklitschek
Abstract: Trade policy reforms are expected to affect land use patterns in developing countries. Most of the
research has focused on explaining deforestation or the economic and environmental consequences of plantation
subsidies. This article examines the change in economic incentives resulting from trade reforms implemented in
Chile since the mid-1970s for land conversion to forest plantations. The removal of the log export ban and the
general import duties reduction affected forestry and land-competing agriculture both directly and indirectly
through the depreciation of the real exchange rate. Counterfactual roundwood relative prices were obtained by
estimating a generalized Leontief demand function for the domestic processing industry, and the “omega”
coefficient used in the analysis of agricultural trade reforms. The effects on the economic incentives for land
conversion were measured as the land rent changes under forestry and under competing agricultural use that
resulted from counterfactual policy scenarios. The results show the critical role of trade liberalization policies
in creating the necessary economic incentives for the private participation in the expansion of forest plantations
in Chile. The direct effect from the removal of the log export ban was estimated to be larger than the indirect
effect of the general import duty reductions. FOR. SCI. 53(3):385–394.
Keywords: log export ban, real exchange rate, roundwood relative prices, land rents, forest plantations
ECONOMY BROAD POLICIES, with effects on international
trade flows, property rights security, and the
general macroeconomic environment, have been
widely recognized to have a potentially important impact on
land use patterns in developing countries (Angelsen and
Kaimowitz 1999, Munasinghe 2001, Sedjo 2005). The concern
about tropical deforestation has led to an expansion of
research to model the conversion of forests to other land
uses (Kaimowitz et al. 1998). Significant attention has been
received by the possible environmental effects caused by
macroeconomic adjustment programs supported by international
lending institutions (Cruz and Repetto 1992, Sunderlin
et al. 2000). Establishing clear linkages among policy
instruments and forest cover losses has been elusive, however,
due to data limitations, particularly on land use
changes, requiring high levels of aggregation and few temporal
observations (Angelsen and Kaimowitz 1999) [1].
Despite the significant expansion of forest plantations in
a number of countries in the developed and developing
world, the policies behind this land use change have been
less scrutinized [2]. The general comparative advantages of
exotic plantations associated with a favorable location, resulting
from high biological productivity, accessibility to
markets, and terrain with low logging costs, can explain the
changes observed in the geographic distribution of the industry
and the composition of trade flows (Sedjo 1999). The
importance of trade policies among other general conditions,
including land tenure security, forest ownership, rural
finance, and the regulatory institutions, have been identified
as preconditions for the industry expansion (Laarman
1999). Since many of these effects are indirect and difficult
to trace, most of the quantitative analysis has focused on
sector-specific policies, particularly plantation cost sharing
incentives (Amacher et al. 1996, Hardie and Parks 1997,
Zhang and Flick 2001) [3].
Explaining the expansion of planted forests in Chile, an
area of more than 1.5 million hectares in a period of three
decades, offers an interesting analytical challenge. Disentangling
the different policy drivers, trade liberalization
versus sector policies, is difficult in the Chilean case because
the policy reforms were implemented almost simultaneously
in the mid-1970s. Many analysts have emphasized
the role of the 1974 Law Decree 701 (D.L. 701),
through which 75% of the afforestation expenses were
reimbursed to the landowner after certifying an adequate
rate of tree survival (Lara and Veblen 1991, Amacher et al.
1996, Toro and Gessel 1999). Even though other authors
have argued about the importance of trade policy reforms
and increasing property rights security, there has been no
attempt to estimate the contribution of the different factors
involved (Wisecarver 1988, Clapp
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