Ujjayant Chakravorty (Tufts University) will begin the Spring 2015 Seminar Series with his paper,  "Far from the Forest and Close to Town? Fuelwood Markets in Rural India."

Chakravoty, along with co-authors Martino Pelli and Anna Risch, studied the effect of reduced forest cover on household time allocation in rural India, finding that costlier access to forests increases the time households spend in collection and in wage-earning occupations

The main contribution of the paper is in disentangling fuelwood markets into those who buy and those who sell. The implication is that fuelwood collection is likely driven not only by rural household demand but especially by demand from towns in close proximity. Thus energy policies that address deforestation and rural energy use must account for urban energy use as well.

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