Estimados Académicos y Académicas FEN,

Les extendemos la invitación al seminario que organiza el Departamento de Economía, en el que se presentará el trabajo titulado "Forestry Plantations and the Demise of Rural Livelihoods".

Expone: Felipe Jordan, Profesor Asistente, Pontificia Unviersidad Católica.

Coautor: Rebert Heilmayr (University of Californa Santa Barbara).

Abstract: As part of global targets to reforest the world, many developing countries have made ambitious commitments to rapidly expand the area of plantation forests. In many cases, these commitments have been motivated by a desire to encourage rural economic development. However, evidence of the economic impacts of plantation forests are scarce—obtaining causal evidence on how plantations affect rural communities is challenging, since plantations typically expand into regions where land is relatively inexpensive. This paper helps fill this gap by exploiting quasi-experimental variation underpinning the expansion of forestry plantations in Chile. We find that the expansion of plantation forestry led to an increase in employment in forestry, but an even larger decrease in agricultural employment, increasing unemployment and poverty in the short-term. While local labor markets adjusted in the long-term, poverty remained elevated. In aggregate, Chile’s plantation forests appear not to have delivered the local, rural, economic gains that motivate many public policies supporting plantation expansion.

El formato será presencial y el seminario se desarrollará en la Sala P-204.

Saludos cordiales,

Dirección de Investigación