Economic Growth, Biodiversity Conservation, and the Formation of Human Capital in a Developing Country

Can education play a role in fostering economic growth and simultaneously decrease pressure on forests? The aim of this study is to show that it can. Human capital formation is a key element in a development strategy that includes natural resource conservation within the framework of sustained economic growth and poverty alleviation. Consequently, it is not by chance that Guatemala is experiencing both minimal per capital income growth and high deforestation while having one of the lowest educational levels in Latin America. However, since many assumptions about educational benefits are controversial and many aspects depend on broader issues, human capital formation can only be one piece in a multidimensional puzzle. This study is organized into three parts, each one of which can be read independently: first, a macroeconomic assessment of education and other factors involved in the country's growth trajectory; second, a rural analysis indicating the root causes of deforestation and the role education can play to slow down habitat loss; third, the highlighting of some elements indispensable to reform and to subsequent improvement of the quality of rural schooling.

Autorentext

The Author: Ludger J. Löning is presently working at an international financial institution in Washington D.C. He majored in economics and international relations at the Dresden University of Technology, l'Université Pierre Mendès France at Grenoble, and the University of Trier. After working three years as a researcher for the Ibero-America Institute of the University of Göttingen, he received his Ph.D. in economics at this University in 2004. The author has visited the Latin American Region extensively and worked as a consultant in this area for various organizations.

Inhalt
Contents: Patterns of Growth in Guatemala Measuring the Contribution of Education to Growth Data Compilation in a Post-Conflict Country Empirical Evidence for Guatemala Additional Explanatory Variables and Robustness Check Sources of Growth Explaining Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss Qualitative Assessment of Deforestation in Guatemala Empirical Evidence on Deforestation and Land Use in Guatemala Objectives, Key Actors and Implementation of PRONADE What Has PRONADE Delivered?