2025/04/18 by Érika Sayuri Koga, Ewerton Monti, Felipe de Moraes Batista +1 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Environmental Science · #Agricultural Innovations and Practices #Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management #Economic and Environmental Valuation
paper · doi:10.1080/13683500.2025.2493230
openalex publication_date 2025/04/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
This study evaluates the impact of concessions for visitor support services in Brazilian national parks on socioeconomic indicators of surrounding municipalities. It is expected that concessions would increase tourist flows to the municipalities surrounding the parks, which could lead to improvements in socioeconomic benefits. This research focuses on three national parks that were concessioned between 2010 and 2012: Tijuca, Fernando de Noronha, and Serra dos Órgãos and analyses the effect on the socioeconomic indicators of six surrounding municipalities. The impact assessment was conducted using the difference-in-differences estimation technique, combined with a double robust estimator. Control municipalities were selected through four distinct matching techniques. The results showed no significant evidence of changes in visitation attributable to the concessions and also no significant effects of the concessions on these socioeconomic indicators: municipal GDP per capita, population size, number of establishments, number of jobs, number of establishments in tourism, number of jobs in tourism, total earnings of tourism workers, number of establishments in accommodation, number of jobs in accommodation, and total earnings of accommodation workers. The study concludes that the expected socioeconomic impacts were not observed, primarily due to the apparent lack of increased visitation to the parks following the concessions.