Jörg Ankel-Peters

• RWI – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research

The so-called credibility revolution dominates empirical economics, with its promise of causal identification to improve scientific knowledge and ultimately policy. By examining the case of rural electrification in the Global South, this opinion paper exposes the limits of this evidence-based policy paradigm. The electrification literature boasts m...

Increasing the diffusion of technologies with positive externalities is a global policy priority.We investigate the market for energy-efficient biomass cookstoves in rural Senegal, whichhave private and external benefits, but uptake is low. Our pre-specified study covers stoveproducers and intermediary vendors on the supply side, and we elicit dema...

Banerjee, Duflo, and Sharma (BDS, 2021a) conduct a ten-year follow-up of a randomized transfer program in West Bengal. BDS find large effects on consumption, food security, income, and health. We conduct a replicability assessment. First, we successfully reproduce the results, thanks to a perfectly documented reproduction package. Results are robus...

Fossil fuel subsidy removal may hinder access to clean fuels like LPG. Our analysis of urban Senegal shows that LPG use fell sharply after subsidies ended in 2009, despite later price drops. Households switched to charcoal, and the new availability of energy-efficient charcoal stoves made a return to LPG less appealing. This highlights how energy t...

While results from individual Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) often do not hold beyond their setting, the accumulation of many RCTs can be used to guide policy. But how many studies are required to confidently generalize? Our paper examines construct validity, an often neglected yet important element affecting generalizability. Construct validi...

Extending the power grid into hitherto unconnected areas is high on the policy agenda in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, connection rates and electricity consumption remain low in grid connected areas, at least in the short and medium run. This paper provides a long-term follow-up on an evaluation of a large-scale grid extension program in rural Rwanda. W...

This paper reviews the impact of replications published as comments in the American Economic Review between 2010 and 2020. We examine their citations and influence on the original papers' (OPs) subsequent citations. Our results show that comments are barely cited, and they do not affect the OP's citations—even if the comment diagnoses substantive p...

Claims for removing fossil fuel subsidies in the Global South are based on climate and equity concerns, but they can be at odds with improving access to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) as a clean cooking fuel. We examine the case of urban Senegal where LPG usage rates were among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa in the late 2000s. Using Demographic a...

This article reviews and summarizes current reproduction and replication practices in political science. We first provide definitions for reproducibility and replicability. We then review data availability policies for 28 leading political science journals and present the results from a survey of editors about their willingness to publish comments...

We investigate the very long-run impacts of a randomized cash grant in Uganda during COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2008, the program supported young adults through a one-time entrepreneurial grant. Considerable effects materialized after four years, which vanished after nine years. For the 12-year follow-up, we pre-specified three outcomes, including a he...

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. This paper examines the effect of weather shocks on various types of crime. Using a 12-year panel data set at a monthly resolution on the police ward level, we observe a short-term effect of temperatures on violent crime. Furthermore, we find evidence for the medium-term effect of weathe...

This paper revisits the instrumental variable (IV) approach in Lipscomb et al. (2013, 2021) to study the impacts of electrification. We first identify errors in the construction of the dataset, including the modelled IV. Revised estimates on main outcomes and mechanisms are statistically insignificant, with substantially lower effect sizes. We seco...

Charcoal is an important cooking fuel in urban Africa. In this paper, we estimate the current number of charcoal users and project trends for the coming decades. Charcoal production is often not effectively regulated, and it hence contributes to forest degradation. Moreover, charcoal has adverse health effects for its users. At the same time, charc...

This paper evaluates an intervention that randomized information letters about energy efficient investments and behaviors among 120,000 customers of two utilities in Germany. We find that conservation effects differ considerably between both utilities, ranging from a precisely estimated zero effect to −1.4%. By contrast, we do not detect significan...

Reanalyses of empirical studies and replications in new contexts are important for scientific progress. Journals in economics increasingly require authors to provide data and code alongside published papers, but how much does the economics profession actually replicate? This paper summarizes existing replication definitions and reviews how much eco...

Nearly three billion people continue to use woodfuels for their daily cooking. The global policy discourse increasingly emphasizes clean fuels, notably gas and electricity, but these are expensive, and their supply chains typically interrupted, especially in rural areas. As an alternative, this paper shows that fuel-efficient biomass stoves could c...

Energy has been called the "golden thread" that connects economic growth, social equity and environmental sustainability, but important knowledge gaps exist on the impacts of low-and middle-income country energy interventions and transitions. This study offers perhaps the broadest characterization to date of the patterns and consistency in quantita...

This paper replicates and extends the seminal paper by Dinkelman (2011) on the impacts of electrification on female employment. We revisit the validity of the identification strategy that uses the land gradient as an instrumental variable (IV). Our robustness checks cast doubt on the exclusion restriction as the IV drives the outcome variable in no...

The seminal studies by Allcott and Mullainathan (2010), Allcott (2011), and Allcott and Rogers (2014) show that social comparison-based home energy reports (HER) are a cost-effective climate policy intervention in the US. Our paper demonstrates the context-dependency of this result. In most industrialized countries, average electricity consumption...

High hopes are pinned on market-based dissemination of off-grid technologies to complement expensive grid extension in providing electricity to the nearly 1 billion unconnected people in developing countries. In this paper, we elicit the revealed willingness to pay for different solar technologies in rural Rwanda. Households are willing to dedicate...

Free technology distribution can be an effective development policy instrument if market‐driven adoption is socially inefficient and hampered by affordability constraints. Yet, policy makers often oppose free distribution, arguing that reference dependence lowers the willingness to pay (WTP) and thus hinders market potentials in the long run. For i...

Different energy sources have different spillovers on economic development and industrialization. Pathways of economic development based on renewable energy sources might require additional policies to support industrial development.

Recent debates on how to provide electricity to the roughly one billion still unconnected people in developing countries have identified mini-grids as a promising way forward. High upfront costs of transmission lines are avoided, and unlike home-scale solar, mini-grids can provide sufficient electricity for productive uses. Indeed, mini-grids play...

This report was commissioned by the Department of Inclusive Green Growth of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and presents the evaluation of the Intelligent Water Management project implemented in the Colombian coffee sector in the period 2014-2018. That project was co-financed by the Sustainable Water Fund of the Ministry of Forei...

Recent debates on how to provide electricity to the roughly one billion still unconnected people in developing countries have identified mini-grids as a promising way forward. High upfront costs of transmission lines are avoided, and unlike home-scale solar, mini-grids can provide sufficient electricity for productive uses. Indeed, mini-grids play...

High hopes are pinned on market-based dissemination of off-grid technologies to complement expensive grid extension in providing electricity to the unconnected 1.1 billion people in developing countries. In this paper, we elicit the revealed Willingness-to-Pay for different solar technologies in rural Rwanda. Households are willing to dedicate subs...

When properly implemented, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) achieve a high degree of internal validity. Yet, if an RCT is to inform policy, it is critical to establish external validity. This paper systematically reviews all RCTs conducted in developing countries and published in leading economic journals between 2009 and 2014 with respect to how...

Off-grid solar electric power is a promising technology for remote regions in rural Africa where expansion of the electricity grids is prohibitively expensive. Using household data from a target region of an off-grid solar promotion program in the Kénédougou province in Burkina Faso, this paper explores the role of quality-verified branded solar ho...

More than 3 billion people use wood fuels for their daily cooking needs, with detrimental health implications related to smoke emissions. Best practice global initiatives emphasize the dissemination of clean cooking stoves, but these are often expensive and suffer from interrupted supply chains that do not reach rural areas. This emphasis neglects...

People without electricity access, numbering today more than 500 million in rural Africa alone, have been using dim and sooty kerosene lamps and candles for their lighting purposes for decades. In the present paper, current lighting usage patterns are systematically assessed using detailed new survey data from seven countries across Sub-Saharan Afr...

Free distribution of a technology can be an effective development policy instrument if its adoption is socially inefficient and hampered by affordability constraints. Improved cookstoves may be such a case: they generate high environmental and public health returns, but adoption is generally low. Based on a randomized controlled trial in rural Sene...

The investment requirements to achieve the United Nations' universal electricity access goal by 2030 are estimated at 640 billion US Dollars. The assumption underlying this goal is that electrification contributes to poverty alleviation in many regards. In recent years, a body of literature has emerged that widely confirms this positive poverty imp...

More than 1.1 billion people in developing countries are lacking access to electricity. Based on the assumption that electricity is a prerequisite for human development, the United Nations has proclaimed the goal of providing electricity to all by 2030. In recent years, Pico-Photovoltaic kits have become a low-cost alternative to investment intensi...

The UN electricity for all initiative promotes branded solar products based on the argument that otherwise households won’t have access to such technologies. We argue that nonbranded products have already reached households; hence access is not an issue, at least for richer households. Yet, a justification of branded products can be made based on t...

This paper reviews all Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) published in leading economic journals between 2009 and 2014 with respect to how they deal with potential hazards to external validity: Hawthorne and John-Henry effects, general equilibrium effects, specific sample problems, and special care in treatment provision. We find that the majority...

The investment requirements to achieve the United Nations’ universal electricity access goal by 2030 are estimated at 640 billion USD. The assumption underlying this goal is that electrification contributes to poverty alleviation in many regards. In recent years, a body of literature has emerged that widely confirms this positive poverty impact ass...

We study borrowers' preferences over bank and family loans based on field work undertaken in rural Rwanda. We randomly assigned willingness-to-pay questions for a hypothetical loan offer either by a bank or by a family member to a sample of 480 households. Informal family loans are typically easier to access. Because of the social costs they imply,...

The objective of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4All) is to provide electricity by 2030 to the 1.1 billion people in developing countries that hitherto lack access. The OECD/IEA quantifies the investment requirements of this to be at 640 billion USD. Little evidence exists on socio-economic impacts of electrification. T...

We study borrowers' preferences over bank and family loans based on field work undertaken in rural Rwanda. We randomly assigned willingness-to-pay questions for a hypothetical loan offer either by a bank or by a family member to a sample of 480 households. Informal family loans are typically easier to access. Because of the social costs they imply,...

This paper examines the debate on the design and the effectiveness of current development policy and offers a prospect for its future. Particular attention is dedicated to the role of markets in the combat against poverty, on one hand, and on the role of states and public subsidies, on the other. So far, the demarcation line between these two appro...

Local beer breweries in Burkina Faso absorb a considerable amount of urban woodfuel demand. We assess the woodfuel savings caused by the adoption of improved brewing stoves by these micro-breweries and estimate the implied welfare effects through the woodfuel market on private households as well as the environmental effect. We find substantial wood...

Around 3 billion people in developing countries rely on woodfuels for their daily cookingneeds with profound negative implications for their workload, health, and budget as wellas the environment. Improved cooking stove (ICS) technologies appear to be an obvioussolution in many cases. Indeed we find that users of a very simple ICS in urban BurkinaF...

Today, almost 3 billion people in developing countries rely on biomass as primary cooking fuel, withprofound negative implications for their well-being. Improved biomass cooking stoves are alleged tocounteract these adverse effects. This paper evaluates take-up and impacts of low-cost improved stovesthrough a randomized controlled trial. The random...

Widely considered an important backbone of economies in developing countries, micro-and small enterprises face several growth constraints. The creation of industrial zones (IZs) with improved access to infrastructure and secure land tenure is a potential remedy to promote local economic development. We assess the effects of an intervention on busin...

Local beer breweries in Burkina Faso absorb a considerable amount of urban woodfuel demand. We assess the woodfuel savings caused by the adoption of improved brewing stoves by these, mostly female owned, small enterprises and estimate the implied welfare effects through the woodfuel market on private households. We find substantial wood savings amo...

The investment requirements to achieve the United Nations’ universal electricity access goal by 2030 are estimated at 640 billion USD. The assumption underlying this goal is that electrification contributes to poverty alleviation in many regards. In recent years, a body of literature has emerged that widely confirms this positive poverty impact ass...

More than 1.1 billion people in developing countries are lacking access to electricity. Based on the assumption that electricity is a prerequisite for human development, the United Nations has proclaimed the goal of providing electricity to all by 2030. In recent years, Pico-Photovoltaic kits have become a low-cost alternative to investment intensi...

Non-electrified people in Africa, still more than 500 million today, have been using kerosene and candles for their lighting purposes for decades. The lighting quality of these sources is low and in particular kerosene usage is associated with harmful soot emissions. Alleviating this grievance has always been a major goal of electrification program...

We study borrowers' preferences over bank and family loans based on field work undertaken in rural Rwanda. We randomly assigned willingness‐to‐pay questions for a hypothetical loan offer either by a bank or by a family member to a sample of 480 households. Informal family loans are typically easier to access. Because of the social costs they imply,...

The United Nations' objective to provide electricity to the 1.3 billion people without access in developing countries comes at high costs. Little evidence exists on socioeconomic impacts of electrification. This paper rigorously investigates effects of a large grid extension program in Rwanda on all rural beneficiary groups: households, microenterp...

In recent years, rural electrification and access to television have spread throughout the developing world. The values and cultural norms embodied in television programming have potentially profound implications for influencing behaviour, including reproductive decisions. After replicating Westoff and Koffman’s (2011) finding of a positive correla...

In recent years, rural electrification and access to television have spread throughout the developing world. The values and cultural norms embodied in television programming have potentially profound implications for influencing behaviour, including reproductive decisions. After replicating Westhoff and Koffman’s (2011) finding of a positive correl...

Around 3 billion people in developing countries rely on woodfuels for their daily cooking needs with profound negative implications for their workload, health, and budget as well as the environment. Improved cookstove (ICS) technologies in many cases appear to be an obvious solution. Despite continuous efforts of the international community to diss...

With 2.7 billion people relying on woodfuel for cooking in developing countries, the dissemination of improved cooking stoves (ICSs) is frequently considered an effective instrument to combat deforestation, particularly in arid countries. This paper evaluates the impacts of an ICS dissemination project in urban Senegal on charcoal consumption, usin...

Widely considered as an important backbone of economies in developing countries, micro- and small enterprises face several constraints in doing business in Ghana. The creation of industrial zones (IZ) with improved access to infrastructure and secured land tenure is a potential remedy to promote local economic development. In this paper, we assess...

Providing access to electricity is widely considered a precondition for socio-economic improvement in rural areas of developing countries. While electrification interventions are often expected to reduce poverty through their application in income generating purposes (business), the reality of rural usage patterns suggests a different actuality, wi...

In recent years, rural electrification and access to television have spread rapidly throughout the developing world. The values and cultural norms embodied in television programming have potentially profound implications for influencing behavior, particularly as regards reproductive decisions. Using household panel data from the Indonesian Family L...

Today more than 2.7 billion people rely on biomass as their primary cooking fuel, with profound implications for the environment and people’s well-being. Wood provision is often time-consuming and the emitted smoke has severe health effects – both burdens that afflict women in particular. The dissemination of Improved Cooking Stoves (ICS) is freque...

There is a consensus in the international community that rural electrification and, in particular, the productive use of electricity contributes to poverty alleviation. At the same time, efforts to evaluate the impacts of development projects have increased substantially. This paper provides a hands-on guide for designing evaluation studies regardi...

Rural electrification is believed to contribute to the achievement of the MDG. In this paper, we investigate electrification impacts on different indicators. We use household data that we collected in Rwanda in villages with and without electricity access. We account for self-selection and regional differences by using households from the electrifi...

There is a consensus in the international community that rural electrification and, in particular, the productive use of electricity contributes to poverty alleviation. At the same time, efforts to evaluate the impacts of development projects have increased substantially. This paper provides a hands-on guide for designing evaluation studies regardi...

Summary Productive electricity use is widely believed to contribute to positive impacts of electrification projects. This paper investigates these impacts by comparing the performance of micro manufacturing enterprises in grid-covered and non-covered villages in Northern Benin. Using firm-level data, the analysis employs Propensity Score Matching t...

This paper aims to shed light on the nexus of electricity, firm performance, and economic development in a dynamic rural area in Southern Uganda. Using quantitative firm-level data on 200 micro-enterprises complemented by qualitative case studies we find that modern energy increases the importance of electricity-using capital and alters the sectora...

This baseline report is part of an evaluation commissioned by the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It belongs to a series of impact evaluations of renewable energy and development programmes supported by the Netherlands, with a focus on the medium and long term effects of these progra...