An Evaluation of Protected Area Policies in the European Union

Tristan Grupp, Prakash Mishra, Mathias Reynaert and Arthur A. van Benthem

No 31934, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The European Union designates 26% of its landmass as a protected area, limiting economic development to favor biodiversity. This paper uses the staggered introduction of protected-area policies between 1985 and 2020 to study the selection of land for protection and the causal effect of protection on vegetation cover and nightlights. Our results reveal protection did not affect the outcomes in any meaningful way across four decades, all countries, protection cohorts, and a wide range of land and climate attributes. We conclude that European conservation efforts lack ambition because policymakers select land for protection not threatened by development.

JEL-codes: Q23 Q24 Q57 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-eec and nep-env
Note: EEE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31934.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

Related works:
Working Paper: An Evaluation of Protected Area Policies in the European Union (2024)
Working Paper: An Evaluation of Protected Area Policies in the European Union (2023)
Working Paper: An Evaluation of Protected Area Policies in the European Union (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31934

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w31934
The price is Paper copy available by mail.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().