The impact of governmental ideology on forest preservation: Evidence from cross-country data

Abstract

This study aims to examine the relationship between forest preservation and governmental ideology by conducting empirical investigation based on data for 101 countries from 1991 to 2018 and GMM estimation. The estimations support that left-wing government benefits for forest preservation while right-wing one does some harm to forest preservation, this idea is still confirmed while we conduct robustness tests by using two partisan variables and removing extreme values. Furthermore, the higher political power would increase the influence of governmental ideology on forest; Moreover, if the governmental ideology changes to right-wing, the forest would decrease. Meanwhile, results for moderating effect suggest that globalization, air quality and population density would weaken the role of governmental ideology in forest preservation. Additionally, both the length of remaining terms and share in legislatures determine the governmental ideology’s impact on forest preservation.