Does the Quality of Electricity Matter? Evidence from Rural India

Ujjayant Chakravorty (), Martino Pelli and Beyza Ural Marchand

Cahiers de recherche from Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke

Abstract: This paper estimates the returns to household income due to improved access to electricity in rural India. We examine the effect of connecting a household to the grid and the quality of electricity, defined as hours of daily supply. The analysis is based on two rounds of a representative panel of more than 10,000 households. We use the district-level density of transmission cables as instrument for the electrification status of the household. We find that a grid connection increases non-agricultural incomes of rural households by about 9 percent during the study period (1994- 2005). However, a grid connection and a higher quality of electricity (in terms of fewer outages and more hours per day) increases non-agricultural incomes by about 28.6 percent in the same period.

Keywords: Electricity Supply; Quality; India; Energy and Development; Infrastructure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O12 O18 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2013-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-ene
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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http://gredi.recherche.usherbrooke.ca/wpapers/GREDI-1305.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does the quality of electricity matter? Evidence from rural India (2014)
Working Paper: Does the Quality of Electricity Matter? Evidence from Rural India (2014)
Working Paper: Does the Quality of Electricity Matter? Evidence from Rural India (2014)
Working Paper: Does the Quality of Electricity Matter? Evidence from Rural India (2014)
Working Paper: Does the Quality of Electricity Matter? Evidence from Rural India (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:shr:wpaper:13-05

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