Benefits of Electrification and the Role of Reliability : Evidence from India
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 electrificat...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/980911479147772730/Benefits-of-electrification-and-the-role-of-reliability-evidence-from-India http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25691 |
| Summary: | 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. |
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