May 19, 2020
Electricity access and appliance usage are integral parts of developing a modern economy in rural areas. Unfortunately, many households in rural India struggle to access reliable electricity and, therefore, are unable to power appliances throughout the day. We use household survey data from 10,249 households across the Indian states of Bihar, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh to explore potential drivers of electric appliance usage. By applying a series of linear and nonlinear models, we find that grid-connected households have more electricity available to them, and use significantly more electricity to power appliances in each of four designated household appliance categories: lighting (e.g., LEDs and CFLs), cooling (e.g., fans and AC units), entertainment (e.g., phones and TVs), and housekeeping (e.g., refrigerators and irons). Households using alternative power sources, including solar home systems (SHSs) and mini-grids, exhibit high uptake and use of lower-level appliances in the lighting and cooling categories, but much less so in the entertainment and housekeeping categories. Grid access is also correlated with higher electricity availability than alternative sources. Electricity availability is shown to be a highly significant predictor for powering appliances for longer time periods in all categories, but especially for more easily attainable appliances in lighting and cooling categories.
May 18, 2020
We develop a theory to explain the persistence of tensions between decentralized delegation and centralized control of environmental governance in authoritarian regimes. Economic benefits from decentralization – information, competition, and efficiency – conflict with environmental goals of centralized policy harmonization and management of inter-jurisdictional externalities. Decentralization to local government actors can facilitate economic growth but also empower them in ways that undermine environmental governance. Persistent tensions between decentralized and centralized imperatives generate cycles in environmental and energy systems governance. We test our theory of authoritarian environmental governance cycles using the case of China’s power sector, drawing on evidence from primary source documents, field interviews, and multiple data sources on the development and distribution of energy generating capacity. We focus on two policy areas – coal-fired power and wind energy – that are integral to central government efforts to improve the quality of environmental governance. This research explains the puzzling alternations in the locus of governance, and contributes to understanding inter-governmental relations and environmental politics in authoritarian regimes.
May 14, 2020
Air pollution is a vexing problem for emerging countries that strike a delicate balance between environmental protection, health, and energy for growth. We examine these difficulties in a study of disparate levels of exposure to pollution from coal-fired power generation in India, a country with high levels of air pollution and large, marginalized populations. With data on coal plant locations, atmospheric conditions, and census demographics, we estimate exposure to coal plant emissions using models that predict emission transportation. We find that ethnic and poor populations are more likely to be exposed to coal pollution. However, this relationship is sometimes non-linear and follows an inverted u-shape similar to that of an Environmental Kuznets Curve. We theorize that this non-linear relationship is due to the exclusion of marginalized communities from both the negative and positive externalities of industrial development.
Apr 28, 2020
Electricity is the most commonly used form of energy for artificial lighting in modern society. Despite a rapid growth in the rate of electrification, 9% of electrified Indian households in our six sampled states continued to use kerosene as their primary lighting fuel in 2018. This appears as a puzzle considering the benefits of electric lights. Using a panel survey of rural households in six states in India, we examine why some grid-connected households primarily used kerosene lamps for illumination. We use a logistic regression model to test our hypothesis regarding the relationship between primary lighting choices and electricity quality. The results show that household primary lighting choices are correlated with nighttime duration of electricity service, daytime duration of electricity service, and the number of days without any electricity connection, at the 99% confidence level. Among these three factors, nighttime duration of electricity service has the greatest impact. To further promote the use of electric lights, intensive schemes to improve electricity quality are needed.
Apr 23, 2020
From carbon pricing to green industrial policy, economic ideas have shaped climate policy. Drawing on a new dataset of pol-icy reports, we show how economic ideas influenced climate policy advice by major international organizations, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank, from 1990 to 2017. In the 1990s, the neoclassi-cal notion of weak complementarity between environmental protection and growth dominated debates on sustainable devel-opment. In the mid-2000s, economic thought on the environment diversified, as the idea of strong complementarity between environmental protection and growth emerged in the green growth discourse. Adaptations of Schumpeterian and Keynesian economics identified investment in energy innovation and infrastructure as drivers of growth. We thus identify a major trans-formation from a neoclassical paradigm to a diversified policy discourse, suggesting that climate policy has entered a post-paradigmatic period. The diversification of ideas broadened policy advice from market-based policy to green industrial policy, including deployment subsidies and regulation.
