Lokina, Razack
Razack Lokina is an associate professor of Economics, Center Director and Senior Research Fellow at EfD Tanzania.
Forest Collaborative
Ende, Jean-Carl
Jean-Carl Ende is a graduate student at Portland State University pursuing a Master's degree in Economics along with a graduate certificate in econometrics and data analysis.
Purdon, Mark
Mark Purdon is an expert in the emerging field of comparative environmental politics, which combines elements of comparative politics, public policy and international relations.
Albers, Heidi J.
Heidi J. Albers (Jo) is the Wyoming Excellence Chair in Conservation Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Wyoming.
Hyde, William
William Hyde has conducted research on forestry, benefit-cost analysis, rural development, preservation vs development, water quality, wildlife, and fuelwood.
Yi, Yuanyuan
YuanYuan Yi is a research fellow of National School of Development, Peking University.
Bluffstone, Randall
Randall Bluffstone is Professor of economics at Portland State University.
Robinson, Elizabeth J Z
Elizabeth Robinson is an environmental economist, specialising in the management of natural resources in low and middle income countries.
Alemu, Tekie
Tekie Alemu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Environmental Economics Policy Forum for Ethiopia which is housed at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute.
Ekbom, Anders
Anders Ekbom works at the Environmental Economics Unit (EEU), Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Mekonnen, Alemu
Alemu Mekonnen is an Associate Professor of economics at the School of Economics of Addis Ababa University.
Xu, Jintao
Jintao Xu is senior researcher of China Center for Environmental and Energy Economics (CCEEE) at the National School of Development, Peking University.
Köhlin, Gunnar
Gunnar Köhlin is the Director of Environment for Development – a global network of environmental economics’ centers. He is also an Associate Professor at the Environmental Economics Unit, Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg.
Securing Forest and Community Land Rights - Challenges, Trends and Ways Forward
This seminar will be an opportunity to learn from and discuss with land right experts from Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), Sida, civil society organizations, academia and the private sector. EfD Director Gunnar Köhlin is an invited panelist and Olof Drakenberg moderates the seminar. Live webcast: A stream will appear here 10 Sept 2014 at CET 10:00
27th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE)
EfD in Ethiopia will be represented in the 27th Conference of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). Dr Zenebe Gebreegziabher will be presenting a paper entitled "Institutions and Sustainable Land Use: the Case of Forest and Grazing Lands in Northern Ethiopia" at the conference. The theme of the conference is "The Global Landscape of Agriculture".
Corruption, Reform and Environmental Policy in the Forest Sector in Kenya
In recent times many developing countries have experienced degradation of their natural resource base namely forests, water, fisheries etc. The resource degradation has largely been blamed on the management regime of these resources. In this study we investigate the local evolution and current status of forest management regimes in Kenya.
The Impact of Paying for Forest Conservation on Perceived Tenure Security in Ecuador
We study the impact of Ecuador’s national forest conservation incentives program on reported land conflicts. Data come from a survey of >900 households located within 49 indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities holding communal conser- vation contracts. We use quasi-experimental methods to test for relationships between
Creating Protected Areas on Public Lands: Is There Room for Additional Conservation?
Most evaluations of the effectiveness of PAs have relied on indirect estimates based on comparisons between protected and unprotected areas. Such methods can be biased when protection is not randomly assigned. We add to the growing literature on the impact of PAs by answering the following research questions: What is the impact of Chilean PAs on deforestation which occurred between 1986 and 2011? How do estimates of the impact of PAs vary when using only public land as control units?
Are government incentives effective for avoided deforestation in the tropical Andean forest?
In order to ensure the provision of goods and services from forests, many governments have promoted less-traditional conservation initiatives such as programs of payments for ecosystem services called, more broadly, direct payments for conservation. The Socio Bosque Program (SBP) is a governmental program in Ecuador that directly provides economic incentives to rural families and local and indigenous communities who have voluntarily agreed to comply with some conservation activities. An impact evaluation method (matching) was used to assess the impact of the SBP between 2008 and 2014.
Livelihood mushroomed: Examining household level impacts of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) under new management regime in China's state forests
Finding alternative livelihood possibility for state worker households is crucial for the successful implementation of Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) in China's key state forest regions. One local innovation to implement NFPP while allowing worker households alternative use of forestland is the “Contract Management Responsibility System (CMRS)”. Under CMRS, participating households have exclusive rights to harvest and grow non-timber forest products (NTFP) while fulfilling forest protection responsibility.
Prospect Theory and Tenure Reform: Impacts on Forest Management
We examine the role of risk and time preferences in how forest owners respond to forest certification. We test hypotheses from a two-period harvest model derived from prospect theory in the context of Fujian, China, where new forest certification started in 2003. Using survey and field experiment data, we find that certification resulted in reduced harvesting, and the effect was larger for households who are more risk averse and exhibited distorted probability weighting.
Lessons from Applying Market-Based Incentives in Watershed Management
Watershed management is a complex activity with constraints on funding and human resources in many parts of the world, and there is a need for global effort to identify strategies that can work. To complement regulatory approaches, attention is now also being given to market-based incentives because of their potential cost-effectiveness. This study seeks to provide impetus to the use of the most successful market-based incentives to promote sustainable watershed practices through strengthening and increasing direct participation
Payments for Ecosystem Services and Motivational Crowding in Colombia’s Amazon Piedmont
Globally, there is an increasing level of funding targeted to pay farmers and rural communities for the provision of ecosystem services, for example through Payments for Ecosystem or Environmental Services (PES) schemes and pilots for Reducing Emissions from
Smallholder Agricultural Production Efficiency of Adopters and Nonadopters of Land Conservation Technologies in Tanzania
Promotion and supporting the adoption of land management and conservation technologies (LMCTs) among poor farming households has been considered to improve crop yields as well as production technical efficiency (TE). This article compares production efficiency between adopters and nonadopters of LMCTs in Tanzania. Using national panel data, the study applied stochastic frontier model to estimate the TE of adopters and nonadopters. The findings show that adopters of LMCTs had a relatively significantly higher TE (0.73) than their nonadopter counterparts (0.69).
Ecological Restoration and Livelihood: Contribution of Planted Mangroves as Nursery and Habitat for Artisanal and Commercial Fishery
Restoration of degraded and depleted mangrove habitats and planting of mangroves over coastal mudflats is happening at many places, but there are few studies that evaluate the flow of ecosystem services from these regenerated ecosystems. The state of Gujarat in Western India has planted thousands of hectares of mangroves over the coastal mudflats and, today, the state’s mangrove cover is nearly double that in the 1930s. However, these mangroves have limiting features: for example, these are mostly single-species, Avicenna marina, and are sparse, and lack freshwater supply.
Environment & Forests Book Chapter-India- Three Year Action Plan Agenda, 2017-18 to 2019-20
The Three Year Action Agenda, a NITI Aayog document, is based on extensive discussions with and inputs from the central ministries and State governments. The Governing Council of the NITI Aayog, consisting of the Prime Minister as its Chairperson and several Union Ministers and State Chief Ministers as Members, extensively deliberated on the document in its draft form at its meeting on 23rd April 2017.
China's second round of forest reforms: Observations for China and implications globally
This paper provides an overview of recent forest tenure reform in rural China and a summary of findings from a series of surveys and research papers. The research papers cover several broad themes, including the impacts of enhanced policy stability, expanded farmer household forestland holding, and longer contract periods as well as a richer bundle of tenure rights, on farmers willingness to invest in money terms and labor inputs in forestry activities.
China’s Second Round of Forest Reforms: Observations for China and Implications Globally
This paper provides an overview of recent forest tenure reform in rural China and a summary of findings from a series of surveys and research papers. The research papers cover several broad themes, including the impacts of enhanced policy stability, expanded farmer household forestland holding, and longer contract periods as well as a richer bundle of tenure rights, on farmers willingness to invest in money terms and labor inputs in forestry activities.
The impact of microhydroelectricity on household welfare indicators
The use of small-scale off-grid renewable energy for rural electrification is now seen as part of the sustainable energy solutions. The expectation from such small-scale investment is that it can meet the basic energy needs of a household and subsequently improve someaspects of household welfare. However, these stated benefits remain largely hypothetical because there are data and methodological challenges in existing literature attempting to isolate such impact.
Driving forces for households' adoption of improved cooking stoves in rural Tanzania
With increasingly improved cooking stoves (ICS) that aim to reduce fuelwood consumption by forest-dependent households, more evidence of what drives households to adopt ICS is needed. Using data from a representative sample (N=271) of households in a rural part of eastern Tanzania, we estimated a mixed logit model to take into account the limitations of the standard multinomial logit model and relaxed the restrictive assumption of the conditional logit model.
Fuel savings, cooking time and user satisfaction with improved biomass cookstoves
Continued high reliance on traditional biomass fuels and stoves in developing countries gives rise to several human health, environmental, and livelihood issues. However solid data on the performance of improved biomass cooking stoves remains scarce. This paper provides controlled cooking test (CCT) evidence on fuel savings from a promising improved biomass cooking stove in Ethiopia. The stove is called Mirt(meaning “best” in Amharic), and is used to bake injera, the staple food in much of Ethiopia. Injera preparation accounts for about half the primary energy consumed in the country.
Collective forest tenure reform and household energy consumption: A case study in Yunnan Province, China
The recent Collective Forest Tenure Reform in China has started the process of devolving forest management rights from village collectives to households since 2003. In this paper, we study the impact of the reform on rural energy consumption. Devolving forest tenure improves farmers' access to forest products on their newly acquired forestland, and is therefore expected to increase farmers' fuelwood consumption. The reform also allows farmers to adopt some revenue-enhancing forest technologies which may lead to energy switching in farmer households.
Ethiopia Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) Realizing Green Transformation
The Country Environmental Analysis (CEA) of Ethiopia is a country-level diagnostic tool to support investment and policy dialogues. It highlights the key environment-related trajectories and challenges facing the country in the coming decade and beyond, and identifies pathways for simultaneously achieving economic, social, and environmental objectives in the context of Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy (CRGE) Strategy for 2025, and Second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP II) for 2016-2020.
How do People in Rural India Perceive Improved Stoves and Clean Fuel? Evidence from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand
Improved cook stoves (ICS) have been widely touted for their potential to deliver the triple benefits of improved household health and time savings, reduced deforestation and local environmental degradation, and reduced emissions of black carbon, a significant short-term contributor to global climate change. Yet diffusion of ICS technologies among potential users in many low-income settings, including India, remains slow, despite decades of promotion.
Does purchase price matter for the waiting time to start using energy efficient technologies: Experimental evidence from rural Ethiopia?
this study uses a randomized experiment in rural Ethiopia to test on how quickly energy efficient technology (an improved stove) is put in use after the technologies is disseminated. We evaluate two concepts that may affect usage of a product: screening (related to valuation of a product) and sunk cost effects (based on the price the potential user paid for the product). A standard Tobit and IV-Tobit methods of estimations are used for testing sunk cost and screening effects, respectively.
Essays on forest conservation policies, weather and school attendance
The first chapter of my dissertation Heterogeneous Local Spillovers from Protected Areas in Costa Rica (with Juan Robalino & Alexander Pfaff) offers a contribution to the literature estimating the impact of protected areas (PAs) on preventing tropical deforestation. It extends previous work by looking at how the establishment of national parks affects land use change in the neighboring private land. This is a relevant question as most analyses to date examine the realized deforestation impacts of PAs only within their borders, generally finding reduced deforestation effects.
Heterogeneous Local Spillovers from Protected Areas in Costa Rica
Spillovers can significantly reduce or enhance the net effects of land-use policies, yet there exists little rigorous evidence concerning their magnitudes. We examine how Costa Rica’s national parks affect deforestation in nearby areas. We find that average deforestation spillovers are not significant in 0–5 km and 5–10 km rings around the parks. However, this average blends multiple effects that are significant and that vary in magnitude across the landscape, yielding varied net impacts.
Determinants of Successful Collective Management of Forest Resources: Evidence from Kenyan Community Forest Associations
Participation of local communities in management and utilization of forest resources through collective action has become widely accepted as a possible solution to failure of centralized, top-down approaches to forest conservation. Developing countries have thus resorted to devolution of forest management through initiatives such as Participatory Forest Management (PFM) and Joint Forest Management (JFM). In Kenya, under such initiatives, communities have been able to self-organize into community forest associations (CFAs).
New Frontiers of Forest Economics: Forest economics beyond the perfectly competitive commodity markets
The paper provides an overview of the papers included in this special issue, and presents thoughts about New Frontiers of Forest Economics. The paper argues that science does not mean analysis alone; it should be complemented by synthesis and forest economics is a promising field to rediscover synthesis as a methodology of science.
Village democracy and household welfare: evidence from rural China
Village democratization in rural China is found to have profound impacts on many socio-economic aspects, but little is understood as to how welfare impacts may occur through farmers' principal production activities. This study helps to fill this gap by investigating how village democracy affects rural household welfare through these channels, using a unique household survey. The authors first establish a theoretical framework that links democracy to household welfare through changes in production efficiency.
Lessons from a pilot program to induce stove replacements in Chile: Design, implementation and evaluation
We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a subsidy program to introduce cleaner and more efficient household wood combustion technologies.
Technological Innovation and Dispersion: Environmental Benefits and the Adoption of Improved Biomass Cookstoves in Tigrai, Northern Ethiopia
This paper empirically analyzes adoption and fuel savings efficiency of improved biomass cookstove technology using survey data from a cross-section of 200 farm households from the highlands of Tigrai, northern Ethiopia. Results indicate that these farm households are willing to adopt improved biomass cookstove innovations if this leads to economic savings. Moreover, results suggest significant positive environmental externalities. On a per household basis, we found that adopters collect about 70 kg less wood and about 20 kg less dung each month.
Determinants of Adoption and Impacts of Sustainable Land Management and Climate Smart Agricultural Practices (SLM-CSA)
This paper analyzes the factors affecting adoption of sustainable land management and climate smart agricultural (SLM-CSA) practices (in particular tree planting, soil conservation and inter cropping)and the effects of adoption on crop net revenue. We use two rounds of household and parcel level survey data collected from the East Gojjam and South Wollo Zones in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, in combination with spatially explicit climate data (rainfall and temperature).
Determinants of Adoption and Impacts of Sustainable Land Management and Climate Smart Agricultural Practices (SLM-CSA): Panel Data Evidence from the Ethiopian Highlands
This paper analyzes the factors affecting adoption of sustainable land management and climate smart agricultural (SLM-CSA) practices (in particular tree planting, soil conservation and intercropping) and the effects of adoption on crop net revenue. We use two rounds of household and parcel level survey data collected from the East Gojjam and South Wollo Zones in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, in combination with spatially explicit climate data (rainfall and temperature).
Fuel choices and fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in urban areas of central-southern Chile: the role of prices, income, and the availability of energy sources and technology
This paper analyzes empirically the determinants of fuel choices and intensity of fuelwood use for residential heating and cooking in central-southern Chile.
Securing benefits for local communities from international visitors to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
This article estimates the visitation demand function for Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) in order to determine the scope for raising fees charged to international tourists in order to fund revenue-sharing schemes for local communities. International and Southern African Development Community tourists account for approximately 25% and 2% of the total number of visitors to South African national parks, with domestic visitors making up the remaining portion. Although
Payment for Ecosystem Services in the Bolivian Sub-Andean Humid Forest
The adoption of good practices for the economic valuation of environmental services (ES) has strong implications in the evaluation and design of a Payment for Environmental Services program.
A Bayesian Quantile Binary Regression Approach to Estimate a Payment for Environmental Services
The authors used a Bayesian estimation approach to estimate a quantile binary regression and the WTP distribution in the context of a contingent valuation PES application.
Effects of key state-owned forestry reforms on the inequality of household incomes
Based on the survey on 1 454 households in 24 forestry bureaus in 3 provinces, this paper used both MEL and OLS methods to evaluate the impact of state-owned forestry reforms on the inequality of household income. The study found that inequality of households in state-owned forestry regions has further aggravated and the reforms take the main responsibility for this phenomenon.
Analysis on the effects of key state-owned forestry reform on employment
[Objective] Based on the micro survey data of key state-owned forestry area, this paper analyzed the impacts of state-owned forestry region reform on the changes in employment, which would provide a useful reference for the policy of key state-owned forestry region. [Method] We described the changes of industries, departments and aspects of employment in state-owned forestry region by statistical methods. Furthermore, we applied an econometric model to estimate the effect of state-owned forestry reforms on the employments.