Fuelwood Source Substitution and Shadow Prices in Western Kenya

David Murphy, Julia Berazneva and David R. Lee

No 205084, 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: Deforestation in Sub-Saharan Africa remains a substantial problem. Increasing scarcity of fuelwood can be significant burden to households, as fuelwood is a key component of the energy profile of a rural Sub-Saharan household. However, households do not only collect their fuelwood from off-farm, but also produce it on-farm and purchase it from the market. This paper studies substitution between fuelwood sources for rural Kenyan households. Conducting analysis using shadow prices for household fuelwood in a non-separable theoretical framework, we find that strict gender divisions in household labor contribute to a lack of substitution between fuelwood sources. Because fuelwood production on the farm is more sustainable than off-farm collection, gender divisions inhibit reforestation efforts in this area. This paper finds a direct linkage between women and environmental well-being, and concludes that reforestation efforts in SSA will likely be ineffective until labor substitution between genders increase.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Environmental Economics and Policy; International Development; Land Economics/Use; Resource/Energy Economics and Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2015-05-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene and nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea15:205084

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.205084

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