Research

Payment for Ecosystem Services in Costa Rica: Evaluation of a Country-wide Program (Latest draft)

Our study evaluates the effect on deforestation and land cover of Costa Rica’s payment-for-ecosystem-services (PES) program, one of the oldest country-wide PES programs in the world. Using property level data from over 2,600 landowners who applied to participate in the program between 2016 and 2019, we employ an event study design using modern methods that account for rollout under treatment heterogeneity and find a statistically significant decrease in the deforestation rate. The estimated effect represents an 87% decrease with respect to the pre-2016 average deforestation rate and is equivalent to 0.09 hectares of avoided deforestation per property (a small total effect given the low baseline deforestation). We find no significant effect on forest cover, but we find suggestive evi-dence that there is a shift from annual to perennial crops. Given that the lack of addition-ality is one of the main critiques of PES programs, we explore whether the program could increase its additionality by targeting properties with higher ex-ante deforestation risk. For this, we train a machine learning model to predict which properties have a higher risk of deforestation and find that the program is currently not enrolling disproportionately more high-risk properties. Limiting our focus to these properties, we find that the reduction in the deforestation rate is 27-73% larger than what we find for the whole sample of participants. Risk-based targeting could reduce the cost of avoided CO2 emis-sions by 42%, from $71 for the current program to $41 per ton, well under current esti-mates of the social cost of carbon. 

Land cover change effects from community forest management in Michoacán, Mexico (2023) with Baylis, K., Ramirez, I. Environmental Research Letters, 18(6) 

Evidence for the impacts of agroforestry on ecosystem services and human well-being in high-income countries: a systematic map (2022) with Castle, S., Miller, D. C., Merten, N., Baylis, K. Environmental Evidence, 11

The impacts of agroforestry interventions on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review (2021) with Castle, S., Miller, D. C., Baylis, K., Hughes, C. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 17(1)

The impacts of agroforestry on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well‐being in low‐and middle‐income countries: An evidence and gap map (2020) with Miller, D. C., Brown, S. E., Forrest, S., Nava, N. J., Hughes, K., Baylis. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 16(1)

Evidence for the impacts of agroforestry on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in high-income countries: a systematic map protocol (2018) with Brown, S.E., Miller, D.C., Baylis, K. (2018). Environmental Evidence, 7.

Protocol for an evidence and gap map The impacts of agroforestry on agricultural productivity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in low-and middle-income countries: An evidence and gap map (2017) with Miller, D.C.; Baylis, K.; Hughes, K.; Rana, P. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 13(1). 

Power plants, Air Pollution and Health in Colombia (version Feb. 2021)

In this paper I estimate how electricity generation from fossil fuel power plants affects air pollution in Colombia,  and how that air pollution affects the mental, respiratory and cardiovascular health of the population around them. I use the river flows that feed hydroelectric power plants as instruments for electricity generation from fossil-fuel plants, to estimate increases on particulate matter (PM10) and associated health effects. I find that the electricity necessary to meet the monthly demand for 1 million people (116 GWh), is responsible for 2.75 ug/m3 of PM10, leading to an increase in mental health patients of 6%, and of 9% for respiratory health patients. I show that this has significant economic effects, highlighting that the inclusion of mental health effects increases the total costs by 13%. The total health costs for the 24 million people in my sample, amount to 22 million USD per year, for 1 ug/m3 of PM10. A cost-benefit analysis of the re-placement of coal power plants around Bogota by solar generation, shows that the health benefits outweigh the cost of the tax incentives, with a benefit-cost ratio of 6:1.

Agricultural Productivity and Deforestation in Zambia: The Negative Shock from a New Pest

Deforestation is the second most important source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and contributes to 11% of greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, over half of the deforestation is driven by agriculture. This paper studies the effect of a negative agricultural productivity shock on deforestation in Zambia. Specifically, we focus on the unexpected arrival of the Fall Armyworm in Africa in 2016. We use two different approaches to provide empirical evidence of the link between agricultural productivity and deforestation. First, we use a standard differences-in-differences (DiD) approach, using a suitability index of the presence of the FAW together with the timing of the arrival of the FAW, to estimate how the arrival of the FAW affected maize yields and deforestation. Second, we also use a machine learning (ML) approach, by training a ML model using data from before the arrival of the FAW, to predict what deforestation would have been in absence of the FAW. We then estimate the same equation as with our DiD approach, only that the dependent variable in this case is the prediction error. We find that areas with higher FAW suitability see a significant decrease in yields and a significant increase in deforestation. Specifically, a grid cell with a suitability index 1 standard deviation above the mean, experiences a 11.4% decrease in maize yields, and a 9.5% increase in deforestation. We then estimate that the elasticity of forest loss to maize yields is of 0.83, which means that for a 1% decrease in maize yields, forest loss increases by 0.83%. We believe this paper contributes to the existing literature relating the interactions between agricultural productivity and deforestation, as well that studying the use of forest products as a coping mechanism for the negative shocks faced by rural households. 

The Response of Colombia's Manufacturing Sector to Changes in Energy Prices, with Mateus Souza.