While much work has examined approaches to increase uptake of a variety of household environmental, health and energy technologies, researchers and policymakers alike have struggled to ensure long-term use. Drawing on a pilot-scale experiment conducted in rural Cambodia, this study evaluates whether economic incentives enhance continued use of—and fuel savings from—improved cookstoves (ICS).

In a mixed farming system in which farmyard manure (FYM) is considered an important multipurpose renewable resource that can be used to enhance soil organic matter, provide additional income and supply household energy, soil fertility depletion could take place within the perspective of the household allocation pattern of FYM. This paper estimates a system of FYM allocation regressions to examine the role of returns to FYM and farmers’ impatience on the propensity to allocate FYM to different uses.

This study uses survey data from randomly selected rural households in Ethiopia to examine the coping mechanisms employed by rural households to deal with fuelwood scarcity. The determinants of collecting other biomass energy sources were also examined.

This paper describes how management and information failures can retard transitions from the traditional use of biomass fuel by low income rural consumers and micro-producers.

It is estimated that approximately 2.5 billion people in developing countries rely on biomass fuels to meet their cooking needs. Biomass fuels are derived from living, or recently living organisms, such as wood and leaves, animal waste and other types of waste. Urban centers have long been dependent on the rural hinterlands for about 90% of their biomass fuel needs in Ethiopia. This is one of the causes of deforestation and has resulted in growing fuel scarcity and higher firewood prices.

This paper examines the multiple fuel choices of urban households in major Ethiopian cities, using panel data collected in 2000 and 2004. The results suggest that as urban and rural households’ total expenditures rise, they use more types of fuels (including wood) and spend more on the fuels consumed. The results also support arguments that multiple fuel use better describes the fuel-choices of households in developing countries, as opposed to the idea that households switch to more expensive but cleaner fuels as incomes rise.

Fertilizer use (including dung) in Ethiopia is low, particularly in the northern highlands, where dung is a significant source of household fuel.

This paper reviews the state of economic understanding about fuelwood in developing countries. It synthesizes the main results from numerous empirical studies with the intent of identifying implications for policy and pointing out where important questions remain unanswered.

The paper uses a non-separable agricultural household model to examine biomass fuel collection and consumption behaviour of Ethiopian rural households.