JOIN VIRTUALLY! Leaping or Creeping Up the Energy Ladder

Taryn Dinkleman
Associate Professor of Economics
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow

Almost half of the world’s population that does not have access to modern energy – specifically, electricity – lives in Africa. In the coming decades, planned expansions in access to electricity for households and businesses across the continent will have implications for poverty reduction and for greenhouse gas emissions. Yet there is considerable uncertainty around how fast or slow these expansions in access will be, and around how quickly they will translate into impacts on the environment, on household livelihoods and on small businesses in sub-Saharan Africa. In this project, we provide direct evidence on what happens to a rural African community over twenty years, following the introduction of highly subsidized grid electricity connections. We use data from a unique longitudinal household survey over twenty years to map out the dynamics of diffusion of household electrification in a rural part of South Africa.