What drives long-run biodiversity change? New insights from combining economics, palaeoecology and environmental history

Nick Hanley (), Dugald Tinch, Konstantinos Angelopoulos (), Althea Davies, Edward B. Barbier () and Fiona Watson

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2009, vol. 57, issue 1, pages 5-20

Abstract: This paper presents a new approach for understanding the effects of economic factors on biodiversity change over the long run. We illustrate this approach by studying the determinants of biodiversity change in upland Scotland from 1600 to 2000. The measure of biodiversity used is a proxy for plant species diversity, constructed using statistical analysis of palaeoecological (pollen) data. We assemble a new data set of historical land use and prices over 11 sites during this 400-year period; this data set also includes information on changes in agricultural technology, climate and land ownership. A panel model is then estimated that controls for both supply and demand shifts over time. A main result is that prices that act in our model as a proxy for livestock numbers do indeed impact on biodiversity, with higher prices leading to lower biodiversity.

Keywords: Agricultural; development; Biodiversity; Palaeoecology; Panel; models; Instrumental; variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WJ6 ... 1c4542429ddebe4099d7
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:57:y:2009:i:1:p:5-20

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is edited by C.F. Mason

More articles in Journal of Environmental Economics and Management from Elsevier
Series data maintained by Heidi Boesdal ().