Political cycles of forest rents in developing countries

In this article, we question the presence of electoral cycles in forest rents in developing countries. The presence of rents can be an additional motivation to stay in power; they can be used to finance elections without running a deficit or increasing taxes. Forests' point resource characteristics make them more subject to political cycles. Moreover, developing countries may experience these cycles because of the quality of their institutions. That is why our study covers eighty-three (83) developing countries from 1990 to 2018, using the method of ordinary least squares corrected for the possible Nickell's bias. The results show that we see cycles in forest rents only when the elections' competitiveness is considered. This presence of cycles is robust to using different robustness tests. Moreover, the cycles appear only in the event of representation of the candidate in power at the elections and in low-corrupted and high-human-freedom countries.