Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Precolonial Institutions And Deforestation In Africa, S. Larcom, Terry Van Gevelt, A. Zabala

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We find that local institutions inherited from the precolonial era continue to play an important role in natural resource governance in Africa. Using satellite image data, we find a significant and robust relationship between deforestation and precolonial succession rules of local leaders (local chiefs). In particular, we find that those precolonial areas where local leaders were appointed by ‘social standing’ have higher rates of deforestation compared to the base case of hereditary rule and where local leaders were appointed from above (by paramount chiefs). While the transmission mechanisms behind these results are complex, we suggest that areas where local leaders …