Does the Environment Matter for Poverty Reduction? : The Role of Soil Fertility and Vegetation Vigor in Poverty Reduction

Heger, Martin ; Zens, Gregor ; Bangalor, Mook

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SOIL FERTILITY;    POVERTY REDUCTION;    LAND USE;    SOIL QUALITY;    ENVIRONMENT;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8537
RP-ID  :  WPS8537

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The debate on the environment-povertynexus is inconclusive, with past research unable to identifythe causal dynamics. This paper uses a unique global paneldata set that links (survey and census derived) poverty datato measures of environmental quality at the subnationallevel. The analysis uses vegetation vigor as a proxy forabove-ground environmental quality and soil fertility asproxy for below-ground environmental quality. Rainfall isused to account for endogeneity issues in an instrumentalvariable approach. This is the first global study usingquasi-experimental methods to uncover to what degreeenvironmental quality matters for poverty reduction. Thepaper draws three main conclusions. (1) The environmentmatters for poverty reduction. The panel regression suggeststhat a 10 percent increase in vegetation vigor is associatedwith a poverty headcount ratio reduction of nearly 0.7percentage point in rural areas, and 1 percentage point inSub-Saharan Africa. A 10 percent increase in soil qualityleads to a roughly 2 percentage point decrease in povertyrates in rural areas and in Sub-Saharan Africa. (2) Theeffects of environmental quality on poverty are strongerthan its effects on average income, suggesting that the poorbenefit disproportionately from environmental quality. (3)In situ environmental quality improvements are pro-poor, incontrast to urbanization. Although urbanization has highlysignificant and sizable correlations with GDP per capita, itis not significantly correlated with poverty reduction.