Baland, Jean-Marie, Bardhan, Pranab, Das, Sanghamitra, Mookherjee, Dilip, and Rinki Sarkar. 2004. "The Environmental Impact of Poverty: Evidence from Firewood Collection in Rural Nepal." Presented at "The Commons in an Age of Global Transition: Challenges, Risks and Opportunities," the Tenth Conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Oaxaca, Mexico, August 9-13.

Abstract

"We examine linkages between alternative measures of poverty and collection of forest firewood by rural households in Nepal in the World Bank 1995-96 Living Standards Measurement Survey. We find no evidence that increases in consumption were associated with a reduction in firewood collection, irrespective of whether we control for household size, education, occupation or productive assets owned. Increased consumption was associated with a positive, concave wealth effect, with no significant effect on shadow cost of time in collecting firewood. However, controlling for consumption levels, collections were significantly lower for households of smaller size, more primary schooling, more nonfarm employment and business assets. The results suggest that the effect of growth in living standards on firewood collection could be mitigated if accompanied by spread of primary education, growth of nonfarm occupations and drop in fertility."