Abstract
We examine how asset-access contracts shape labor productivity and the distribution of returns between workers and firms, drawing on randomized and natural experiments with motorcycle drivers and electric-vehicle (EV) fleet and battery firms in Nairobi. Offering applicants a fixed-wage opportunity to drive EVs increases daily labor hours by 1.37 hours (17 percent) and earnings by USD 1.8 (27 percent), while reducing gasoline expenditures by USD 1.4 (57 percent). Transitioning drivers from the fixed-wage contract to a lease-to-own (LTO) arrangement raises labor hours by 3.52 hours (38 percent) and earnings by USD 4.2 (33 percent), and lowers gasoline consumption by USD 0.45 (20 percent). Treating energy as an intermediate input, we augment drivers’ value-added production function with the labor-effort first-order condition, estimate post-LTO parameters, and backcast them to pre-LTO data to evaluate productivity dynamics and the incidence of returns. Within two months, LTO increases labor productivity by 37 percent through greater income and time flexibility, raises battery-vendor revenues net of grid-electricity costs by USD 1.48 (44 percent), and shifts the fleet supplier toward a mo financially sustainable
model. Despite longer work hours, drivers’ average short-run welfare remains unchanged under LTO, although job-satisfaction and mental-health measures remain stable. A one year follow-up survey is completed and long-term consequences and counterfactual analyses are underway as of March, 2026.