 Benefits of electrification and the role of reliability: evidence from IndiaHussain A. Samad and Fan Zhang No 7889, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank Abstract: This paper estimates the welfare impact of rural electrification in India using nationally representative household panel survey data for 2005 and 2012. Analysis based on a propensity-score-weighted fixed-effects model finds that while electrification is associated with a broad range of social and economic benefits, the size of the effects depends importantly on the reliability of electricity service. Gaining access to electricity combined with a reliable power supply is associated with a 17 percent increase in income during the sample period, but gaining access to electricity alone is associated with only a 9.6 percent increase in income. The net gain from both increasing the access rate and reducing power outages in rural India is estimated to be US$11 billion a year. Moreover, India's rural electrification policy appears to be progressive because lower-income households benefit more from access to electricity than higher-income households during the sample period. Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Energy and Mining; Inequality; Industrial Economics; Economic Growth; Energy and Environment; Energy Demand (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7889 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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