Abstract
Electricity enables households (in developing countries) to adopt new technologies. It is assumed that electricity will make households more efficient and maximize household welfare, particularly from time savings. Most empirical evidence supporting the benefits of electricity are from observational studies that rely on strong identification assumptions. For instance, studies suggest that access to electricity improves labor market participation (Dinkelman, 2011; Grogan et al., 2013; He, 2019), reduces firewood consumption (Dendup, 2021; Litzow et al., 2019), increases income (Khandker et al., 2012; Van de Walle et al., 2017), increases firm output (Rud, 2012), and enhances educational outcomes (Lipscomb et al., 2013; Baron et al., 2014). However, above observational studies assumes strong identification assumptions. Among others, one of the popular methods used in the electricity impact literature is instrumental variable (IV) strategies, which are often criticized for potential violations of the exclusion restriction assumption. This study will create exogenous variation in electricity usage by randomly assigning incentives to conserve electricity. By using this exogenous variation, it aims to contribute to the growing literature on the impact of grid electricity on five key areas: (1) education, (2) cooking fuel, (3) indoor air pollution, (4) wage labor, and (5) leisure.