Laundering and Evasion in Response to Anti-Slavery Policies in Brazil's Cattle Sector
with Marin Skidmore, Juliana Brandão, Lisa Rausch, and Holly Gibbs
in press at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Abstract: Modern slavery remains pervasive across many economic sectors. Progress towards eradicating it has been partially hindered by a lack of tested, comprehensive policy responses. Using data on millions of cattle transactions in Brazil, we evaluated how ranchers changed their selling behavior after being added to the “Dirty List,” a public registry that names and shames employers found to use modern slavery. Dirty Listed ranchers significantly reduced direct sales to slaughterhouses that signed sustainable supply chain commitments but evaded sanctions by laundering cattle through compliant intermediaries or selling to non-signatory slaughterhouses. These responses weakened the financial cost of listing to ranchers, and likely allowed beef and leather linked to modern slave labor to enter international supply chains. Our findings highlight the limits of downstream enforcement and underscore the need to monitor upstream suppliers to ensure slavery-free supply chains.
Monitoring the Middleman: Supply Chain Networks and Environmental Sanctions in Brazil's Cattle Sector
job market paper, link coming soon
Abstract: Zero-deforestation supply chain commitments, in which companies promise not to purchase agricultural commodities from producers with environmental infractions, have had limited effectiveness in part because buyers do not monitor their full supply chains. In the Brazilian cattle sector, new policies will soon require slaughterhouses and importers to monitor and block both direct and upstream suppliers with illegal deforestation. Using a unique dataset of millions of cattle transactions in the Brazilian Amazon, I assess where non-compliant cattle entered clean supply chains and to whom ranchers rerouted cattle after being blocked by slaughterhouses. I first identify the properties that most frequently bridged non-compliant and compliant supply chains. Just two percent of compliant properties handled two thirds of cattle that moved from non-compliant to compliant supply chains. These highly connected “Brokers” were located earlier in the supply chain than the indirect suppliers targeted by current monitoring initiatives. Then, with quasi-experimental methods, I test how ranchers reorganized their supply chain relationships following government-imposed environmental sanctions. Sanctioned ranchers reduced sales to monitoring slaughterhouses and increased by the same magnitude sales to other ranchers, particularly those already connected to non-compliant supply chains. They also increased sales to co-owned "auxiliary" properties, which subsequently increased their own purchases and sales, including to monitoring slaughterhouses. These results identify high-risk points in cattle supply chains and show how sanctions can shift activity toward closely connected properties.
Farmer Networks and Forest Conservation in the Brazilian Amazon
with Marin Skidmore and Holly Gibbs
Confined Feedlots, Intensification, and Deforestation in the Amazon
Characterizing Conversion: A Property-Level Analysis of Cropland Expansion in the American Midwest
with Raines Lucas, Christina Dennis, Tyler Lark, and Holly Gibbs
Property-Level Dynamics of Private Land Conservation in the U.S. Midwest
with Christina Dennis, Tyler Lark, and Holly Gibbs
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