Power outages and firm performance: A hydro-IV approach for a single electricity grid

Robert Elliott (), Viet Nguyen-Tien and Eric Strobl ()

Energy Economics, 2021, vol. 103, issue C

Abstract: We estimate the impact of power outages on firm performance using a hydro-instrumental variable strategy which integrates a river flow with a hydropower generation model and an electricity-grid-based distance interpolation technique. Comparing World Bank Enterprise Surveys in 2005 and 2015 for Vietnam, we find that despite considerable economic progress, firms have become more susceptible to power outages. Our estimates suggest that reducing the length of power cuts by 1% would have increased revenues by 4.66 billion USD. Other results show that firms with less reliable electricity have lower productivity and use less flexible inputs, which is not mitigated by backup generators.

Keywords: Power outages; Firm performance; Vietnam; Growth; Instrumental variables (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N55 O13 O44 Q54 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988321004436
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Power outages and firm performance: a hydro-IV approach for a single electricity grid (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s0140988321004436

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105571

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant

More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().