Land Use Modeling in Recursively-Dynamic GTAP Framework

Abstract

*Chapter 10 of the forthcoming book "Economic Analysis of Land Use in Global Climate Change Policy," edited by Thomas W. Hertel, Steven Rose, and Richard S.J. Tol. The goal of this work is to investigate land-use change at the global scale over the long run - particularly in the context of analyzing the fundamental drivers behind land-use related GHG emissions. For this purpose, we identify the most important drivers of supply and demand for land. On the demand side, we begin with a dynamic general equilibrium (GE) model that predicts economic growth in each region of the world, based on exogenous projections of population, skilled and unskilled labor and technical change. Economy-wide growth is, in turn, translated into consumer demand for specific products using an econometrically estimated, international cross-section, demand system that permits us to predict the pattern of future consumer demands across the development spectrum. This is particularly important in the fast-growing, developing countries, where the composition of consumer demand is changing rapidly. These countries also account for an increasing share of global economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. Consumer demand is translated into derived demands for land through a set of sectoral production functions that differentiate the demand for land by Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ).