The Greener Gender: Women Politicians and Deforestation in Brazil

This event is hybrid, to attend remotely register here.

This paper examines the impact of women’s political representation on deforestation rates in Brazil. Using close election regression discontinuity design, we show that women, when elected to office, are more likely to drive improved environmental outcomes due to factors such as reduced access to corrupt networks that influence the enforcement of environmental laws at the local level. Altogether, our findings demonstrate that women’s political representation significantly reduces deforestation rates in the Brazil.

Speaker: Kathryn Baragwanath, Harvard Academy Scholar

Moderated by Alisha Holland, Professor of Government, Harvard University.

Kathryn Baragwanath is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Her work explores the political economy of natural resources and environmental policy in developing countries. Her research focuses on three inter-related questions about the political economy of natural resources in developing economies: (1) the political drivers of deforestation and environmental depletion, (2) the effect of commodity price cycles on government accountability and local governance, and (3) measuring the spatial distribution of economic activity using remote-sensing technologies. Before obtaining her PhD at UCSD, she worked as a research economist at the Chilean Antitrust Agency, Fiscalía Nacional Económica. She received a BA degree and a Masters in Economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Outside of academia, she enjoys nature, yoga, painting, pottery, and soccer.

Alisha Holland is a Professor in the Government Department at Harvard University.  Before joining the Harvard faculty, she was an Assistant Professor in the Politics Department at Princeton University. Her first book, Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics), looks at the politics of enforcement against property law violations by the poor, such as squatting, street vending, and electricity theft.  She is working on a new book on the politics of mass infrastructure investments in Latin America.  

Presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs