IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03152303.html

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

Author

Listed:
  • Tanguy Bernard

    (GREThA - Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Maximo Torero

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Tanguy Bernard & Maximo Torero, 2015. "Social interaction effects and connection to electricity: Experimental evidence from rural Ethiopia," Post-Print hal-03152303, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03152303
    DOI: 10.1086/679746
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simone Tagliapietra & Giovanni Occhiali & Enrico Nano & Robert Kalcik, 2020. "The impact of electrification on labour market outcomes in Nigeria," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 737-779, October.
    2. Daniela Vidart, 2024. "Human Capital, Female Employment, and Electricity: Evidence from the Early 20th-Century United States," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(1), pages 560-594.
    3. Christopher Ksoll & Kristine Bos & Sarah Hughes & Anthony Harris & Arif Mamun, "undated". "Evaluation Design Report for the Benin Power Compact's Electricity Generation Project and Electricity Distribution Project," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 9f8974513ee745aaac3b5c62e, Mathematica Policy Research.
    4. Yang, Yeonbin, 2025. "Does Household Electrification Empower Rural Boys and Girls Alike? Evidence from Brazil," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    5. Duncan Chaplin & Arif Mamun & Ali Protik & John Schurrer & Divya Vohra & Kristine Bos & Hannah Burak & Laura Meyer & Anca Dumitrescu & Christopher Ksoll & Thomas Cook, "undated". "Grid Electricity Expansion in Tanzania by MCC: Findings from a Rigorous Impact Evaluation, Final Report," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 144768f69008442e96369195e, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. Kenneth Lee & Edward Miguel & Catherine Wolfram, 2016. "Experimental Evidence on the Demand for and Costs of Rural Electrification," NBER Working Papers 22292, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Abdul-Salam, Yakubu & Phimister, Euan, 2019. "Modelling the impact of market imperfections on farm household investment in stand-alone solar PV systems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 66-76.
    8. Koima, Josephat, 2024. "School electrification and academic outcomes in rural Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    9. Maruejols, Lucie & Höschle, Lisa & Yu, Xiaohua, 2022. "Vietnam between economic growth and ethnic divergence: A LASSO examination of income-mediated energy consumption," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    10. Fetter, T. Robert & Usmani, Faraz, 2024. "Fracking, farmers, and rural electrification in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    11. Barron, Manuel & Torero, Maximo, 2014. "Electrification and Time Allocation:Experimental Evidence from Northern El Salvador," MPRA Paper 63782, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Bonan, Jacopo & Battiston, Pietro & Bleck, Jaimie & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe & Pareglio, Stefano & Sarr, Bassirou & Tavoni, Massimo, 2021. "Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    13. Kenneth Lee & Edward Miguel & Catherine Wolfram, 2020. "Does Household Electrification Supercharge Economic Development?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 122-144, Winter.
    14. Xie, Li & Kong, Chun, 2024. "A fair grid connection cost-sharing model for electricity based on the random forest machine learning method," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    15. Enrico Nano, 2022. "Electrifying Nigeria: the Impact of Rural Access to Electricity on Kids' Schooling," IHEID Working Papers 03-2022, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    16. Ruhinduka, Remidius D. & Bensch, Gunther & Selejio, Onesmo & Lokina, Razack Bakari, 2024. "What could explain low uptake of rural electricity programs in Africa? Empirical evidence from rural Tanzania," Ruhr Economic Papers 1084, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Cieslik, Katarzyna, 2016. "Moral Economy Meets Social Enterprise Community-Based Green Energy Project in Rural Burundi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 12-26.
    18. Santosh Kumar & Ganesh Rauniyar, 2018. "The impact of rural electrification on income and education: Evidence from Bhutan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1146-1165, August.
    19. Bonan, Jacopo & Pareglio, Stefano & Tavoni, Massimo, "undated". "Access to Modern Energy: a Review of Impact Evaluations," Energy: Resources and Markets 189697, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    20. Schmidt, Maika & Moradi, Alexander, 2026. "Community effects of electrification: Evidence from Burkina Faso’s grid extension," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    21. Priya Manwaring & Tanner Regan, 2023. "Public disclosure and tax compliance: evidence from Uganda," CEP Discussion Papers dp1937, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    22. Deutschmann, Joshua W. & Postepska, Agnieszka & Sarr, Leopold, 2021. "Measuring willingness to pay for reliable electricity: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    23. Masselus, Lise & Ankel-Peters, Jörg & Sutil, Gabriel Gonzalez & Modi, Vijay & Mugyenyi, Joel & Munyehirwe, Anicet & Williams, Nathan & Sievert, Maximiliane, 2024. "10 Years After: Long-term Adoption of Electricity in Rural Rwanda," OSF Preprints 96xr8_v1, Center for Open Science.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C9 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    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:hal:journl:hal-03152303. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.