Political environmental cycles: how election incentives affect environmental policy and forest conservation outcomes

• Grant number: 19/13707-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2020
• End date: July 31, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics
• Principal Investigator: Paula Carvalho Pereda
• Grantee: Patricia Guidão Cruz Ruggiero
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade (FEA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 14/50848-9 - INCT 2014: INCT for Climate Change, AP.PFPMCG.TEM

Abstract

The political cycles where cyclical and opportunistic manipulation of macroeconomic determinants is modeled by the political framework are widely discussed in the literature of political economy. However, only recently have these cycles been described for secondary policies such as environmental policies and for the use of natural resources in studies that compose a literature that is still incipient and scarce. In this study, we will contribute to this literature by investigating government officials decisions, both related to the creation of protected areas for environmental conservation and to the advance and avoidance of native vegetation loss, in response to the incentives generated by the electoral process. We will build a panel database combining information on protected areas, loss of vegetation, including geographic information, and on election results, at the state and municipal level, for the entire country between 1992 and 2014. We will test outcomes of interest as a function of electoral years, the presence of incumbents running for reelection, race competitiveness, partisan alignment between state and municipal government and the presence of pro-environment groups in the territory. In addition, we may need to address the problem of endogeneity for which we will seek an instrumental variable that allows us to show, with robustness, the existence or not of a causal relation between response and explanatory variables. The understanding of political cycles as relevant drivers of environmental conservation gains and losses is still a gap in environmental sciences practice and research; and is particularly relevant in the case of tropical countries since the maintenance of native vegetation cover is their greater contribution against global climate change. (AU)