ABSTRACT
This article uses household data from Nepal’s two major populated regions (and 27 of 59 districts within those regions) to examine fuelwood consumption and production. In contrast with a purely market assessment, household analysis includes production which is consumed in the producing household. The household regressions yield coefficients and elasticities that are very different from and more reliable than a comparable assessment of market demand and supply. Household results generally support the hypotheses that expenditures on fuelwood are a small share of total household activity and that fuelwood is not sufficiently scarce to alter household behaviour. Fuelwood is sufficiently scarce, however, to alter behaviour for those households in the hill region that do not participate in market exchange. These households may be the best targets for public market interventions designed to alter fuelwood supply and deforestation.
