Journal article

Correlates of forest-cover change in European Russia, 1989–2012

forest loss
forest gain
European Russia
ecological conditions
forest-cover change

European Russia rapidly transitioned after the collapse of the Soviet Union from state socialism to a market economy. How did this political and economic transformation interact with ecological conditions to determine forest loss and gain? We explore this question with a study of European Russia in the two decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union. We identify three sets of potential determinants of forest-cover change—supply-side (environmental), demand-side (economic), and political/administrative factors. Using new satellite data for three distinct types of forest-cover change—logging, forest fires, and forest gain—we quantify the relative importance of these variables in province-level regression models during periods of a) state collapse (1990s), and b) state growth (2000s). The three sets of covariates jointly explain considerable variation in the outcomes we examine, with size of forest bureaucracy, autonomous status of the region, and prevalence of evergreen forests emerging as robust predictors of forest-cover change. Overall, economic and administrative variables are significantly associated with rates of logging and reforestation, while environmental variables have high explanatory power for patterns of forest fire loss.

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2014
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Authors: Solomiya Shpak, John S. Earle, Scott Gehlbach, Mariia Panga

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Publisher: SSRN

Authors: Solomiya Shpak, John S. Earle, Scott Gehlbach, Anton Shirikov

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Publisher: The National Science Foundation

Authors: Solomiya Shpak, John S. Earle, Scott Gehlbach, Anton Shirikov

2018
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Publisher: Post-Soviet Affairs

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Publisher: Journal of Comparative Economics

Authors: Solomiya Shpak, John S. Earle, Scott Gehlbach, Mariia Panga

2021
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Publisher: SSRN

Authors: Solomiya Shpak, John S. Earle, Anton Shirikov, Scott Gehlbach

2025
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Publisher: American Journal of Political Science

Authors: Scott Gehlbach, Dmitriy Vorobyev, Anton Shirikov, Zhaotian Luo

2025
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Private Investment and the Institutionalization of Collective Action in Autocracies: Ruling Parties and Legislatures

Publisher: Japanese Journal of Political Science

Authors: Scott Gehlbach, Philip Keefer

2022
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Who Reports Crime? Citizen Engagement with the Police in Russia and Georgia

Publisher: Routledge

Authors: Scott Gehlbach, Noah Buckley, Lauren A. McCarthy, Timothy Frye