The Recovery of Forest and its Impacts on Left-Behind Children in Western China, with Christopher Timmins

 (Draft available upon request)

Abstract:  This paper explores the effectiveness of these policies on afforestation on rural families (including adultsand children) considering policy-induced land transition and labor migration. Embedding changes in land use and labor allocation in the triple difference approach and the instrumental variable approach, we extend afforestation studies in three dimensions: characterizing its short- and long-run effects on income and off-farm migration, estimating its spillover effects on Left Behind Children, and evaluating its distributional welfare effects. The results provide evidence of negative effects on vulnerable groups and left-behind children, showing that lower-income rural adults are significantly more likely to out-migrate for urban jobs corresponding to afforestation induced land transition. Though children are less likely to quit schools due to compensation from afforestation and remittance, left-behind children’s education performance and life attainments including marriage, health, and income in adulthood are adversely affected. Afforestation policies have regressive impacts and favor wealthy families and families with less arable land. Provided that the PES policy was designed to protect forest resources as well as alleviate poverty in rural areas, the differential welfare
results raise the concern of environmental justice in policy design and evaluations.

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Presented at Western Economic Association (WEAI) Annual Conference, Southern Economic Association (SEA) Annual Conference, AARES Conference, NAREA Scholar Circle