Adriano Marcos Rodrigues Figueiredo

Amazonian forest loss and the long reach of China’s influence

This paper explores China’s role in deforestation in Latin America. Brazil’s Amazon region contains vast natural resources including land, timber, minerals and hydroelectric potential. China’s strong economy and large demands relative to domestic supplies of these resources mean that China has become Brazil’s largest trading partner, primarily for natural resources. The paper examines how China influences deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia in a variety of ways, including through the direct influence of Chinese enterprises through land purchases and other mechanisms. This paper finds that the rapid rise in exports of soy and beef products to China are two of the major drivers of Amazonian deforestation in Brazil. The paper further argues that Chinese purchases of agricultural and forest land and Chinese imports of commodities such as timber and aluminum also cause environmental impacts in Amazonia. Chinese financing and investment in Amazonian infrastructure such as railways and mineral processing facilities have additional impacts.

Explicando as diferenças de pobreza entre produtores agrícolas no Brasil: simulações contrafactuais com o censo agropecuário 1995-96

O censo agropecuario 1995-96 e utilizado para estudar os fatores responsaveis pelas diferencas na pobreza entre os estabelecimentos agricolas no Brasil. As diferencas entre as regioes e as seguintes dicotomias sao analisadas: proprietarios/nao proprietarios; familiares/nao familiares; intensivos em insumos/nao intensivos; com/sem maquinas. O artigo utiliza uma metodologia semiparametrica. Primeiro, uma funcao fronteira estocastica de lucro e estimada. Em seguida, simulacoes nao parametricas contrafactuais sao utilizadas para identificar os fatores que explicam as diferencas em pobreza. Os fatores incluem o tamanho da propriedade, o trabalho familiar, a lucratividade e as variaveis utilizadas para explicar a lucratividade no modelo de fronteira estocastica. O artigo conclui que a falta de terra e os baixos niveis de produtividade sao importantes motivos para a pobreza entre produtores agricolas. E improvavel que qualquer um deles isoladamente possa solucionar o problema da pobreza. As diferencas em “eficiencia” – capturadas pelo termo de erro na funcao fronteira de lucro – sao importantes para explicar as diferencas entre os pobres e os nao pobres, mas nao para as demais dicotomias estudadas. Isto sugere que os fatores nao observaveis – como restricoes ou falhas de mercado – sao importantes para explicar a pobreza entre produtores agricolas no Brasil. ....The 1995-96 agricultural census is used to explore factors that account for differences in poverty among agricultural establishments in Brazil. Differences across regions and the following dichotomies are analyzed: owners/non-owners, family/non-family, input intensive/non-intensive, with machines/without machines. The paper uses a semi-parametric methodology. First, a stochastic frontier profit function is estimated. Then, non-parametric counterfactual simulations are used to identify factors which explain differences in poverty. Factors include farm size, family labor, profitability and the variables used to explain profitability in the stochastic frontier model. The paper concludes that lack of land and low levels of productivity are both important reasons for poverty among agricultural producers. It is unlikely that either one alone could solve the poverty problem. Differences in “efficiency” – captured by the error term in the frontier profit function – are important to explain differences between the poor and non-poor, but not for any of the other dichotomies studied. This suggests that unobservable factors – such as restrictions or market failures – are important to explain poverty among agricultural producers in Brazil.