IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/20403.html

Keeping Gorillas in the Mist: The Environmental Economics of Clean Cooking in the D.R. Congo

Author

Listed:
  • Desbureaux, Sebastien
  • Collart, Lara
  • Stoop, Nik
  • Soubeyran, Raphael
  • Verpoorten, Marijke
  • Couttenier, Mathieu
  • Cikesa, Christine
  • de la Croix Kembere Mulwahili, Jean
  • Shinagawa, Natsuno

Abstract

Our randomized control trial investigates how to accelerate the transition to clean cooking and quantifies the benefits for people and the environment. Fully subsidizing the purchase of an electric cooker to 1,594 urban households in the DRC led to widespread adoption (85%) and high usage (28% of meals). Charcoal consumption decreased by 34%, reducing overall monthly energy costs by $5.76 despite higher electricity spending. The rise in electricity purchases enables subsidy recovery through a razor-and-blade model. After one year, the welfare gains, including lower CO2 emissions and improved protection for mountain gorillas, are twice as high as the cost of the subsidy.

Suggested Citation

  • Desbureaux, Sebastien & Collart, Lara & Stoop, Nik & Soubeyran, Raphael & Verpoorten, Marijke & Couttenier, Mathieu & Cikesa, Christine & de la Croix Kembere Mulwahili, Jean & Shinagawa, Natsuno, 2025. "Keeping Gorillas in the Mist: The Environmental Economics of Clean Cooking in the D.R. Congo," CEPR Discussion Papers 20403, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP20403
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q42 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Alternative Energy Sources
    • O13 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Agriculture; Natural Resources; Environment; Other Primary Products
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • Q57 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Ecological Economics
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CEPR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cepr.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.