We examine two potential economic benefits of environmental policy, increased agricultural investment and productivity. This is important because if these benefits are realized, environmental policy could optimize land use for food production while minimizing the negative environmental impacts. We employ multiple empirical techniques to analyze a market-led and a public-led anti-deforestation policy that influence the vast cattle ranching sector in the Brazilian Amazon. We show that both policies increased cattle productivity, while the market-led policy also increased investment. We find no evidence that the two policies were substitutes or complements. Results indicate that the policies were each effective in different market- and land-use-contexts, so that enforcement of both policies increased productivity for a larger set of properties. Our research reveals both indirect and unintended benefits of environmental regulation, which have implications for the design of policies that affect the agricultural sector, a major driver of land-use change.

我们考察了环境政策的两个潜在经济效益，即增加农业投资和生产力。这很重要，因为如果实现这些好处，环境政策可以优化粮食生产的土地利用，同时最大限度地减少对环境的负面影响。我们采用多种实证技术来分析影响巴西亚马逊地区庞大的养牛业的市场主导和公众主导的反毁林政策。我们表明，这两项政策都提高了牛的生产力，而市场主导的政策也增加了投资。我们没有发现任何证据表明这两项政策是替代品或互补品。结果表明，这些政策在不同的市场和土地使用背景下都是有效的，因此这两项政策的执行都提高了更大范围财产的生产力。