Using the panel data of 89 economies from 1995–2012, this study examines the major drivers of agricultural emissions while considering affluence, energy intensity, agriculture value added and economic integration. We find long-run cointegration among the variables. Furthermore, our empirical results based on a dynamic fixed effects autoregressive distributed lag model show that the increases in income and economic integration – proxied by trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) – are the major contributors to higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture in the short run. Additionally, the increases in income, agriculture value added and energy consumption are the major drivers of agricultural emissions in the long run. Notably, trade openness and FDI inflows have significantly negative effects on GHG emissions from agriculture in the long run. These results apply to methane and nitrous oxide emissions. The empirical findings vary across three subsamples of countries at different development stages.

The importance of forest conservation in the fight against emissions from deforestation and forest degradation has led to reexamination of the deforestation and economic development relationship. For this purpose, we use the recent method of long-term growth rate developed by Stern et al. (2017) on 85 tropical developing countries over the period 1990–2010. Results show that the EKC is not significant. However, we find a beta convergence across developing countries in terms of deforestation per capita. In other words, these countries converge in terms of policies that prevent deforestation and forest degradation. This implies that, just as with growth effects, beta convergence effects are also important in explaining changes in forest cover in tropical developing countries. The convergence effect in forest cover change may be consistent with the forest transition hypothesis.

Subsidies to promote tree plantations have been questioned because of negative impacts of the forestry industry. Quantitative evidence on the socioeconomic impacts of afforestation subsidies or of tree plantations is elusive, mainly due to data scarcity. We assess the overall impact of a tree plantation subsidy in Chile, using our original 20-year panel dataset that includes small area estimates of poverty and the subsidy assignment at the census-district scale. We show that forestry subsidies – on average – in fact, do increase poverty. More specifically, using difference in difference with matching techniques, and instrumental variables approaches, we show that there is an increase of about 2 per cent in the poverty rate of treated localities. We identify employment as a causal mechanism explaining this finding, since we found a negative effect of tree plantations on employment, and therefore, on poverty. We suggest reassessment of the distributional effects of the forest subsidy and forestry industry.

Having enterprises engaged in environmentally friendly behavior is an important part of reducing negative environmental impacts. This study makes a quantitative analysis against the backdrop of China's transitional economic system. The results show that politically-connected enterprises significantly reduce environmental expenditure, but this only holds for state-owned enterprises; private enterprises with political connections spend significantly more. Analysis of the efficiency of environmental expenditure indicates that, for private enterprises, environmental spending is used as a way to maintain political connections, with rent-seeking as the likely motivation. Politically-connected private enterprises have not reduced their emissions to the same extent as state-owned enterprises, despite increased expenditure. Given the scale of environmental degradation in China during a period of massive economic and social upheaval, the results of this analysis provide a quantitative case for policy change: governments should shift focus to the results that environmental spending produces.

The political incentives of local officials affect their preferences for policy options. This study examines the impact of the convening cycle of Provincial Communist Party Congresses (PCPCs) in China on pollution emission intensity. Based on the data of 281 cities and city officials from 2003 to 2014, the present study finds strong evidence of a political pollution cycle manifesting as significant increases in pollution emission intensity before PCPCs followed by visible decreases after PCPCs. PCPCs provide city officials with strong political incentives to pursue short-term economic performance before congresses, which leads to a surge in pollution emission intensity. The difference in pollution emission intensity before and after the PCPCs reveals the existence of such political incentives. The findings suggest that a significant relationship exists between the political incentives of city officials and environmental pollution. Therefore, the effective governance of environmental pollution must involve changing the incentive structure of city officials.