The distributional effects of rural electrification on household welfare: Evidence from Senegal

Kadoukpè Gildas Magbondé, Barry Reilly and Bridget Kauma

Utilities Policy, 2024, vol. 91, issue C

Abstract: This study uses a cross-sectional dataset of 3215 rural Senegalese households from the 2018/19 Harmonized Survey on Households Living Standards to assess the distributional household welfare effects of electricity access. The paper conducts separate analyses for both on-grid and off-grid electricity access and uses an array of empirical strategies to compute the relevant effects. We find that household access to grid electricity is associated with increased food and non-food expenditures, while off-grid solar electricity is only associated with increased levels of the latter. In addition, access to grid electricity appears to impact household expenditures more than solar electricity, with the off-grid effect not detected at the top end of the non-food expenditure distribution. In contrast, on-grid electricity has a greater welfare impact on higher-income households. The results further suggest that access to solar electricity can reduce inequality in total non-food household expenditures more than on-grid electricity. The findings encourage consideration of policies designed to extend solar energy to the more remote rural areas to reduce inequality.

Keywords: Mean and distributional effects; Off-grid and on-grid electricity; Welfare; Rural households; Senegal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I38 O12 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juipol:v:91:y:2024:i:c:s0957178724001401

DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2024.101846

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