Spatial Economics of Conservation and Development:

The Brazilian Amazon contains some of the world's
most biologically diverse ecosystems. These
ecosystems generate significant global benefits in
the form of ecosystem services, species habitats and
environmental amenities. However, the land required
to keep these ecosystems intact and the value of
natural resources the Amazon could generate under
alternative usage is substantial. This means that a
decision not to convert these areas imposes high
opportunity costs on the economy of a developing
country as a whole, and on local populations with a
high incidence of poverty and destitution in
particular. The importance of balancing this
trade-off has increasingly been recognised in
Brazilian development policy. This book aims to
investigate microeconomic issues related to land use
in the Brazilian Amazon emphasizing their
relationship with spatial processes of deforestation
and regional development. After a brief description
of the region and the exploratory analysis of the
data used in the research, theoretical models and
econometric methods are adopted to address specific
questions in four essays.

Autorentext

Danilo C. Igliori is University Lecturer at the Department ofEconomics, University of Sao Paulo and Affiliated Lecturer at theDepartment of Land Economy, University of Cambridge. He haspublished in leading academic journals such as Land Economics,Journal of Regional Science and Urban Studies. He is alsoco-editor of Spatial Economic Analysis.

Klappentext

The Brazilian Amazon contains some of the world'smost biologically diverse ecosystems. Theseecosystems generate significant global benefits inthe form of ecosystem services, species habitats andenvironmental amenities. However, the land requiredto keep these ecosystems intact and the value ofnatural resources the Amazon could generate underalternative usage is substantial. This means that adecision not to convert these areas imposes highopportunity costs on the economy of a developingcountry as a whole, and on local populations with ahigh incidence of poverty and destitution inparticular. The importance of balancing thistrade-off has increasingly been recognised inBrazilian development policy. This book aims toinvestigate microeconomic issues related to land usein the Brazilian Amazon emphasizing theirrelationship with spatial processes of deforestationand regional development. After a brief descriptionof the region and the exploratory analysis of thedata used in the research, theoretical models andeconometric methods are adopted to address specificquestions in four essays.