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Registration

Field Before After
Trial Status on_going completed
Last Published July 27, 2018 01:19 PM August 17, 2026 02:26 PM
Study Withdrawn No
Intervention Completion Date April 30, 2019
Data Collection Complete Yes
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization) 1600 solar customers
Was attrition correlated with treatment status? No
Is there a restricted access data set available on request? No
Program Files Yes
Program Files URL https://reproducibility.worldbank.org/catalog/472
Data Collection Completion Date April 30, 2019
Is data available for public use? No
Keyword(s) Environment And Energy, Welfare Environment And Energy, Welfare
Building on Existing Work No
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Papers

Field Before After
Paper Abstract Quantifying the welfare effects of rural electrification is often hindered by non-price barriers that depress demand at the adoption margin. I study demand for pay-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar using a randomized experiment with 800 existing PAYGo customers in Kenya and Rwanda post-adoption. The experiment randomly assigns incentives that lower the effective price of usage for consumers who meet monthly purchase thresholds. Although average demand is unchanged, consumers with the highest pre-experimental demand increase their purchases by 6–7% in response to the incentive. I use these responses to estimate a lower bound on consumer surplus from PAYGo solar. I find large gains for high-demand consumers, but benefits deteriorate substantially for low-demand consumers. Combining my estimates with evidence from the literature on the environmental externalities of solar home systems, I calculate that the marginal value of public funds for PAYGo solar subsidies is at most 1.7 in Kenya and 2 in Rwanda.
Paper Citation Lang, Megan (2026). "Using price incentives to bound welfare from pay as you go solar electricity." Journal of Public Economics, 259.
Paper URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2026.105656
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