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Jobs! Electricity shortages and unemployment in Africa

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  • Mensah, Justice Tei

Abstract

To what extent does unreliable electricity provision pervasive in many African countries affect job creation in the region? I address this question by assembling household and firm-level data from 29 African countries along with unique project-level data on foreign direct investment (FDI). Leveraging several quasi-experimental approaches, I find that outages have a non-trivial negative impact on employment. The effect is driven by a reduction in employment in non-agricultural sectors and skilled jobs. Unskilled jobs are unaffected by electricity outages. The negative effect of outages on firm entry and the performance of incumbent firms are plausible channels.

Suggested Citation

  • Mensah, Justice Tei, 2024. "Jobs! Electricity shortages and unemployment in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:167:y:2024:i:c:s0304387823001876
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103231
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Electricity outages; Jobs; Employment; Firms; FDI; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

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