Social interaction effects and connection to electricity: Experimental evidence from rural Ethiopia

Tanguy Bernard and Maximo Torero

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Abstract: This article tests for the presence of social interaction effects on households' decision to connect to a newly installed electrical grid in rural Ethiopia and attempts to identify the underlying factors at work. Understanding households' connection decisions has led to significant debates at a time when rural electrification is being promoted throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The article reveals that the investigation relies on the random allocation of nontransferable vouchers that provided a discount on connection to the grid, along with household-level global positioning system (GPS) locations. Connection price being an important driver of a household?s choice to connect, the vouchers provide an exogenous variation in the number of connected neighbors within a particular distance radius, allowing us to identify social multipliers effects.

Keywords: Ethiopia; rural area; electricity; GPS; social participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Published in Economic Development and Cultural Change, 2015, 63 (3), pp.459-484. ⟨10.1086/679746⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Social Interaction Effects and Connection to Electricity: Experimental Evidence from Rural Ethiopia (2015)
Working Paper: Social Interaction Effects and Connection to Electricity: Experimental Evidence from Rural Ethiopia (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03152303

DOI: 10.1086/679746

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