Abstract

We combine 213 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) with information on protected areas (PAs) from the WDPA across 44 developing countries. Exploiting variation in cluster locations and the implementation years of PAs through a difference-in-differences approach, we find a positive impact of PAs on wealth, a negative effect on farmland ownership, and a negative effect on pollution in rural areas. Our results suggest that households in urban areas are much more likely to shift away from resource-intensive activities than those in rural areas. We also observe a reduction in child labor in urban areas, which is associated with a decrease in the use of charcoal or wood as cooking fuels. However, we do not observe these effects in rural areas

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