Technical Efficiency, Farm Size and Tropical Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonian Forest

This paper analyses the impact of farm productivity as well as farm size on deforestation in Brazil. A two step econometric approach is adopted. A bootstrapped translog stochastic frontier that is a posteriori checked for functional consistency is used in order to estimate technical efficiency of which estimates are introduced in a land use model to assess the impact of productivity and farm size on deforestation. Analysis of agricultural census tract data suggests that technical efficiency has a nonlinear (convex) effect: less and more efficient farms use more land for agricultural activities and so they have a positive effect on deforestation. However, the majority of farms are on the ascendant slope so that efficiency implies more deforestation in Brazilian Legal Amazon. Moreover, farm size has a robust negative effect on deforestation. Contrary to many studies, this result suggests that small farms convert more natural (forested) land into agricultural land than large ones.Farm size;Stochastic frontier model;Brazil.;Land use model

Moderate deviations for the chemical distance in Bernoulli percolation

In this paper, we establish moderate deviations for the chemical distance in Bernoulli percolation. The chemical distance between two points is the length of the shortest open path between these two points. Thus, we study the size of random fluctuations around the mean value, and also the asymptotic behavior of this mean value. The estimates we obtain improve our knowledge of the convergence to the asymptotic shape. Our proofs rely on concentration inequalities proved by Boucheron, Lugosi and Massart, and also on the approximation theory of subadditive functions initiated by Alexander.Comment: 19 pages, in english. A french version, entitled "D\'eviations mod\'er\'ees de la distance chimique" is also availabl

Historical and Comparative Institutional Analysis: Evidences from Deforestation

This paper investigates if past institutional, economic, political, social, and cultural features (i.e legal origins on law and regulations and colonial legacies) interact in shaping the current institutional performances on deforestation in 116 developed and developing countries. A two step approach is implemented. First, we investigate relations between colonial legacies-legal origins and current institutional performances. We find that common law countries and previous British colonies have better institutions that French civil law and other past colonized countries. Second, we provide two econometrics procedures to capture some institutional persistences on deforestation which allow to estimate current institutional effects on deforestation conditioned to historical variables. In a first time, we run our deforestation model on different samples (under historical variables) and in a second time, interactive variables are introduced. We find that (i) French civil law countries deforest less than common law ones; (ii) less corruption and more secured property rights decrease deforestation in common law countries; (iii) better rules of law reduce deforestation but this feature is more likely in previous British colonies or non colonized countries. Finally, this paper shows that current institutional performances are important factors in the process of deforestation and that these factors are conditioned to past influences.Deforestation; Institutional persistences; Colonial legacies; Legal Origins; Corruption; Property Ri

Local Labor Market Impacts of Energy Boom-Bust-Boom in Western Canada

The direct and indirect impacts of energy sector boom and bust upon local labor markets are analyzed through the differential growth in employment and earnings between areas with and without energy resources. The estimated differentials attributed to each of these labor demand shocks show that the direct impacts upon the energy sector are large while the indirect impacts upon non-energy sectors are smaller. The significant results of the local job multipliers indicate that job creation in energy extraction also creates new jobs in local sectors during boom periods while displaying no significant job loss spillovers during a bust.boom and bust; energy; job multipliers; labor demand shocks; local labor markets