- Cross-Border Deforestation Index
- Satellite Images for forest cover
- difference trees from bushes and barren land
- measure Forest Cover from both countries close to border
- issue: External Validity → Internal vs External Validity
- across the border the regional difference in GDP per capita might not be as different as the rest of the country
- borders are likely to run along a natural change in geography (e.g. mountain ranges)
- land is not perfectly comparable on both sides of the border
- solution: colonial borders → straight lines
- another issue: most areas with colonial borders forests are not a big thing
- solution: another project mapping areas of homogeneous response units:
- same slope, terrain, resources across borders
- after combining response units with deforestation data we have enough data points for a good experiment
- Brazil vs Bolivia is good example
- China: depending on which border the difference is great
- Dominican Republic: Wild Fires during Slave Revolts decimated forest cover
- outcome:
- forest cover decreases until approximately Brazil’s current GDP per capita and increases from then onward