We investigate determinants of household firewood collection in rural Nepal, using 1995-96 and 2002-3 World Bank Living Standards Measurement Survey (LSMS) data. We incorporate village fixed effects, endogenous censoring, measurement error in living standards and heterogeneous effects of...

Summary This paper assesses degradation of forests managed by local communities (Van Panchayats (VPs)), relative to state protected and open access forests in the Indian state of Uttaranchal. It is based on ground-level ecological measures of forest quality (including canopy cover, biomass,...

This paper explores the role of differing contractual relationships between sugarcane farmers and sugar factories in India resulting from differing ownership structures. In Maharashtra most sugar factories are cooperatively owned by cane farmers, while in Uttar Pradesh most factories are...

As the exchange rate, foreign demand, and production costs evolve, domestic producers are continually faced with two choices: whether to be an exporter and, if so, how much to export. We develop a dynamic structural model of export supply that characterizes these two decisions. The model...

Fuel coefficients of cement production--one for each process of production--are estimated by explicitly accounting for the multiple-kiln structure of cement plants. Unobserved heterogeneity across plants is found to be significant. Furthermore, since the estimable model is nonlinear in exogenous...

This paper presents a microeconometric model of capital utilization and retirement. Estimates of a firm's discrete decision problem with regard to an existing piece of capital--whether to operate, hold idle, or retire it--are obtained, in the context of the U.S. cement industry, by solving a...

This paper assesses the relation between living standards and forest degradation in the Indian mid-Himalayas, and related policy issues. The analysis is based on detailed household, village and ecology surveys in a sample of 165 villages in Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh. Our prior fieldwork...

This paper summarizes findings from a decade-long project on forest degradation in the mid-Himalayan region of India and Nepal. The analysis is based on LSMS data for Nepal and field work in Indian states of Uttaranchal and Himachal Pradesh comprising sample surveys of forests, households and...