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Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms

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  • Morgan Hardy
  • Jamie McCasland

Abstract

Entrepreneurs in developing countries report that unreliable electricity imposes a serious constraint, yet little evidence exists on how blackouts impact the micro-firms that account for the majority of employment. This article estimates the effects of outages on small firms using original firm-level panel data and finds evidence of differential effects by firm size. Firms without employees experience large reductions in revenues and profits. Outages have no measurable effect on the output of firms with employees, where worker hours increase, weekly wages paid decrease, and the analysis fails to reject the null hypothesis that blackouts have no effect on (average firm-level) worker hourly wages.

Suggested Citation

  • Morgan Hardy & Jamie McCasland, 2021. "Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(1), pages 19-33.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:wbecrv:v:35:y:2021:i:1:p:19-33.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/wber/lhz028
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    Cited by:

    1. Stephie Fried & David Lagakos, 2023. "Electricity and Firm Productivity: A General-Equilibrium Approach," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 67-103, October.
    2. Rizwana Yasmeen & Wasi Ul Hassan Shah & Larisa Ivascu & Rui Tao & Muddassar Sarfraz, 2022. "Energy Crisis, Firm Productivity, Political Crisis, and Sustainable Growth of the Textile Industry: An Emerging Economy Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-17, November.
    3. Fox,Louise & Kaul,Upaasna, 2018. "The evidence is in : how should youth employment programs in low-income countries be designed ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8500, The World Bank.
    4. Yu, Jian & Liu, Peng & Fu, Dahai & Shi, Xunpeng, 2023. "How do power shortages affect CO2 emission intensity? Firm-level evidence from China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    5. Mensah, Justice Tei, 2024. "Jobs! Electricity shortages and unemployment in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. Deutschmann, Joshua W. & Postepska, Agnieszka & Sarr, Leopold, 2021. "Measuring willingness to pay for reliable electricity: Evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    7. Hardy, Morgan & McCasland, Jamie, 2021. "It takes two: Experimental evidence on the determinants of technology diffusion," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

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