Short- and Long-Run Impacts of Rural Electrification: Evidence from the Historical Rollout of the U.S. Power Grid

Joshua Lewis and Edson Severnini

No 11243, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Electrification among American farm households increased from less than 10 percent to nearly 100 percent over a three decade span, 1930{1960. We exploit the historical rollout of the U.S. power grid to study the short- and long-run impacts of rural electrification on local economies. In the short run, rural electrification led to increases in agricultural employment, rural farm population, and rural property values, but there was little impact on the local non-agriculture economy. Benefits exceeded historical costs, even in rural areas with low population density. As for the long run, rural counties that gained early access to electricity experienced increased economic growth that persisted for decades after the country was fully electrified. In remote rural areas, local development was driven by a long-run expansion in the agricultural sector, while in rural counties near metropolitan areas, long-run population growth coincided with increases in housing costs and decreases in agricultural employment. This last result suggests that rural electrification stimulated suburban expansion.

Keywords: agriculture; long run; short run; rural electrification; suburbanization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N32 N72 N92 O13 O18 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-ene, nep-gro and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: Journal of Development Economics, 2020, 143, 102412

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11243.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Short- and long-run impacts of rural electrification: Evidence from the historical rollout of the U.S. power grid (2020)
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:iza:izadps:dp11243

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().