A NOTE ON HIGH DISCOUNT RATES AND DEPLETION OF PRIMARY FORESTS

By: Bulte, Erwin H.; van Soest, Daan P.
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Bulte, Erwin H.; van Soest, Daan P., A NOTE ON HIGH DISCOUNT RATES AND DEPLETION OF PRIMARY FORESTS, Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, December 1996, Pages 341-350

Conventional wisdom implies that high discount rates accelerate depletion of tropical forests. As shown in this article, this result does not necessarily hold in a two-state variable model that distinguishes between primary and secondary forest stocks. In the context of a fixed concession period and imperfect government control, logging of primary forests may be both accelerated and depressed as discount rates increase.