Institutional, social and economic roots of deforestation: a cross-country comparison

The emphasis on pure economic explanations for economic development has recently shifted to cultural, social and institutional factors. An ordinary least squares (OLS) regression equation is used to examine the relationship between deforestation and economic, institutional and social capital variables for 117 countries. Institutional, economic, and social capital variables are significantly related to deforestation, although there is no evidence to support the existence of an environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC). While the results cannot be used to discuss any one country specifically, they do provide insight into the general roles of social and institutional factors in deforestation.