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This study tries to examine the determinants of the choice of fuel wood sources in ruralEthiopia. Survey data collected from a sample of rural households in the East Gojam andSouth Wollo zones of the Amhara region of the country were used for the analysis. Amultinomial probit model that allows correlation between the residuals has beenemployed to address the question of whether household’s socioeconomic, environmentand institutional variables affect the choice of fuel wood source in rural Ethiopia. Theresult of the analysis shows that household characteristics such as age and educationlevel of the household head are important determinants in the choice of fuel woodsources. The surprising result from this study is that local level institutions, tenureinsecurity and possession of land certificate are all found to be insignificant. Finally, ourfindings suggests that there are some kind of substitution possibilities between fuel woodfrom forest and other sources (private and market) as indicated by the positive andsignificant impact of distance to the forest on the probability of fuel wood collection fromprivate or market sources.
Replaced with revised version of paper 12/14/10.
