DETER-ing Deforestation in the Amazon: Environmental Monitoring and Law Enforcement

Juliano Assunção, Clarissa Gandour and Romero Rocha

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 125-56

Abstract: We study Brazil's recent use of satellite technology to overcome law enforcement shortcomings resulting from weak institutional environments. DETER is a system that processes satellite imagery and issues near-real-time deforestation alerts to target environmental enforcement in the Amazon. We propose a novel instrumental variable approach for estimating enforcement's impact on deforestation. Clouds limiting DETER's capacity to detect clearings serve as a source of exogenous variation for the presence of environmental authorities. Findings indicate that monitoring and enforcement effectively curb deforestation. Results hold across several robustness checks.

JEL-codes: K32 K42 O13 Q23 Q28 Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1257/app.20200196

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