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Institutions, sustainable land use and consumer welfare: the case of forest and grazing lands in northern Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2011

Zenebe Gebreegziabher ,
Berhanu Gebremedhin  and
Alemu Mekonnen
Zenebe Gebreegziabher
Affiliation:
Environmental Economics Policy Forum for Ethiopia, Ethiopian Development Research Institute, P.O. Box 2479, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Department of Economics, Mekelle University, Ethiopia. Tel: +251 115 52 35 64. Email: zenebeg2002@yahoo.com
Berhanu Gebremedhin
Affiliation:
International Livestock Research Institute, Ethiopia. Email: b.gebremedhin@cgiar.org
Alemu Mekonnen
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Email: alemu_m2004@yahoo.com
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Abstract

Land is an essential factor of production. Institutions that govern its efficient use determine the sustainability of this essential resource. In Ethiopia all land is publicly owned. Such an institutional setting is said to have resulted in the major degradation of Ethiopia's land resources and dissipation of the resource rent. An alternative to this is assigning a private property institution. In this paper, we examine the consumer welfare effects of a change in the institutional setting on communal forest and grazing lands, using a cross-section data set of 200 households in Northern Ethiopia. Findings suggest that changing the current institutional setting could indeed be welfare reducing.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 2012 , pp. 21 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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