Analysis of illegal logging

Background and Objective

The goal of the project is to examine those factors that are assumed in the scientific literature to have an influence on illegal logging.

Target Group

Policy, Science

Approach

We constructed a regression model to empirically clarify the research question. This model can make statements about the relationship between the occurrence of illegal logging and appropriate economic and institutional explanatory variables

Data and Methods

Data are taken from the literature or publicly available databases (e.g. FAO, World Bank). Logistic regression analysis is used as the methodology.

Our Research Questions

-Is there evidence on why some countries are affected by illegal logging and others are not?

-Are there country-specific factors associated with illegal logging?

-Which countries are more susceptible to illegal logging in terms of underlying conditions?

Results

The results show that, in addition to physical-geographical characteristics, a number of factors related to the degree and speed of a country's economic-institutional development are significantly associated with illegal logging. These include, for example, economic growth, the degree of government accountability, the rule of law, and the presence of corruption.

• Project brief 2021/19a Matthias Bösch
  DOI:10.3220/PB1625484480000