Economic Growth and the Rise of Forests

Although forests have diminished globally over the past 400 years, forest cover has increased in some areas, including India in the last two decades. Aggregate time-series evidence on forest growth rates and income growth across countries and within India and a newly assembled data set that combines...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Quarterly journal of economics 2003-05, Vol.118 (2), p.601-637
Main Authors: Foster, Andrew D., Rosenzweig, Mark R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Crop economics
Economic growth
Economic theory
Forest cover
Forest growth
Forest products
Forest products industry
Forest resources
Forests
Hypotheses
Income
Income estimates
Studies
Timber
Time series
Villages
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Summary:Although forests have diminished globally over the past 400 years, forest cover has increased in some areas, including India in the last two decades. Aggregate time-series evidence on forest growth rates and income growth across countries and within India and a newly assembled data set that combines national household survey data, census data, and satellite images of land use in rural India at the village level over a 29-year period are used to explore the hypothesis that increases in the demand for forest products associated with income and population growth lead to forest growth. The evidence is consistent with this hypothesis, which also shows that neither the expansion of agricultural productivity nor rising wages in India increased local forest cover.
ISSN:0033-5533
1531-4650
DOI:10.1162/003355303321675464