Does infrastructure and resource access matter for technical efficiency? An empirical analysis of fishing and fuelwood collection in Mozambique

Abstract

We use an extensive location-stratified survey of rural households in the Sofala Province (Mozambique) to evaluate the importance of location relative to the Gorongosa National Park (and associated resource stocks) and access to infrastructure in determining household technical inefficiency of fuelwood collection and fish catch activities. The stochastic frontier econometric model corrects for unobserved household level inefficiency shocks and stochastic shocks to these production systems, as well as household time endogeneity. We find important differences in natural resource versus infrastructure access in terms of buffering efficiency-related shocks. For fuelwood collection, inefficiencies depend more on the proximity to roads than to the Gorongosa National Park, although both are important factors in explaining production outcomes. Our estimation results furthermore reveal the presence of a considerable level of inefficiency in both production activities. Overall, our results suggest that sustainable management of resources in and around the park is important for ensuring household well-being in the long run, particularly in the case of open access resources such as fuelwood and fish stocks.