Empirical study on rural households’ demand for energy consumption in Western ethnical minority areas

Based on a household survey in western ethnical minority areas of Gansu and Yunnan province, this paper first describes rural households’energy consumption pattern, and further investigates the relevant factors determining households’demand for fuel wood consumption by using a Tobit model. The empirical results show that sample households have strong dependence on fuel wood consumption. The commercial energy such as coal and electricity have not played a significant substitute effect for fuel wood, while households who use bio-gas have significantly decreased fuel wood consumption. In addition, fuel wood consumption increases with household wealth, whereas the off-farm income ratio has produced a significant and negative effect on fuel wood consumption. We further find that Minority households have consumed more fuel wood than Han majority.