Conference Agenda

Climate change is a global emergency, requiring both technological and institutional interventions to mitigate its effects. Among the contributions of political science to climate action are institutional solutions that address collective action problems, such as collective property rights. Accordingly, collective titling became a prominent conservation strategy in recent decades. However, empirical evidence on its effectiveness remains inconclusive, with inconsistent findings often lacking clear theoretical explanations. We bridge this gap by arguing that the impact of collective titling depends on the strength of intracommunity institutions – where communities with more cohesive institutions experience solider conservation outcomes, as suggested by the common-pool resource literature. We test this argument by analyzing the effects of collective titling programs on deforestation in Brazil. We find that while collective titling reduces degradation, its benefits are concentrated in communities with strong pre-existing collective institutions, highlighting a more nuanced reality than is oftenassumed in the policy literature.

Property-rights reforms require not only a transfer of formal rights, but also credible expectations that those rights will be honored. This paper studies that problem in China’s Collective Forest Tenure Reform (CFTR), using grid-level satellite measures of gross primary productivity and staggered reform timing. CFTR raises forest productivity by about 5 to 7 percent. The gains are visible in stacked difference-in-differences estimates and in a boundary comparison, and the mechanism evidence points to sustained local management effort rather than one-time environmental investment. We then study whether a past policy reversal weakens later reform implementation. Areas more exposed to the 1987 Greater Khingan fire, which preceded a retreat from earlier forest reforms, show lower subsequent management responses and more volatile investment behavior. The results suggest that policy credibility is a productive input in environmental and land reforms.

Climate change has increased the frequency of drought events in the Amazon. Deforestation worsens local climate dynamics, and weather shocks can, in turn, influence land-use decisions. In the Brazilian Amazon, where land tenure is a mix of public and private holdings, landholders on public lands may lack incentives to manage forests sustainably. This study examines how droughts differentially affect pasture expansion on public versus private lands. Using spatially matched comparisons within 0.5° grid cells, we find that during drought years, ranchers on public lands expand pasture area by 30\% more than in baseline years, while private landholders show no significant response. We explore mechanisms behind this difference and find that drought-induced pasture degradation leads to expansion in both tenure types. However, ranchers on public lands expand pasture by 20\% more than those on private lands in response to similar degradation. Moreover, only public landholders continue to expand even after controlling for degradation, suggesting additional drivers, such as lower deforestation costs in drier, more flammable forests. These findings indicate that climate-induced droughts increase deforestation pressure on public forests, which store substantial carbon stocks and cover over two-thirds of the Amazon. This vulnerability complicates efforts to mitigate climate change.

Ecosystem restoration is promoted as a nature-based solution to support both ecosystems and livelihoods, yet evidence on how it reshapes local economic behaviour and wellbeing remain scarce. This paper studies the ecological-economic response of fisheries to mangrove restoration in over 5,000 planting sites in the Philippines. We exploit the staggered roll-out of the Philippines’ National Greening Program between 2011-2018, applying difference-in-differences methods to ecological, fishery, and household survey data. Planting sites accumulate measurable mangrove cover over time and temporarily suppress nearshore phytoplankton productivity, consistent with growing trees competing for macronutrients at the base of the marine food web. These changes have theoretically ambiguous effects on fishing effort and catch. Empirically, catch remains unchanged while effort increases, a pattern consistent with expanding mangrove habitats making fish harder to catch rather than raising fishery productivity. Higher fishing costs are passed through to consumers via higher market prices for fish, inducing entry into the fishery while leaving household fishing incomes unchanged. Households substitute away from the consumption of fish towards meat and eggs, resulting in greater dietary protein diversity, with effects concentrated among poorer households and extending to non-fishing households. This study shows how ecological restoration can reshape livelihoods, markets, and consumption patterns in ways largely unanticipated by program designers.