This paper applies an econometric analysis to estimate the average and distribution benefits of rural electrification using rich household survey data from India. The results support that rural electrification helps to reduce time allocated to fuelwood collection by household members and...

Clean, safe energy for rural areas is an important component of green growth and sustainable development. Biogas could be an important contributor, if its record in reality lives up to its expected potential. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of biogas use by smallholder farmers in...

Skeptics point out, with some justification, that the nuclear industry's prospects were dimmed by escalating costs long before Fukushima. If history is any guide, one direct consequence of the calamity in Japan will be more stringent safety requirements and regulatory delays that will inevitably...

Sub-Saharan Africa trails other regions in providing access to electricity for poor urban and rural residents. This poor performance can be linked to various factors, including political interference in utility policy, higher investment costs and lower profitability of extending service to rural...

India's huge expansion in rural electrification in the 1980s and 1990s offers lessons for other countries today. The paper examines the long-term effects of household electrification on consumption, labor supply, and schooling in rural India over 1982-99. It finds that household electrification...

One side of the debate about anti-dumping argues that dumping is not a problem in international trade - that it is a normal business practice which benefits the importing country's consumers and user industries - and that anti-dumping is inherently protectionist. The other side argues that an...

The authors examine the welfare effects of increasing household energy prices in Poland. Their main finding is that the policy of subsidizing household energy prices, common in the transition economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, is regressive. Such programs do help the poor...

Lack of access to electricity is one of the major impediments to growth and development of the rural economies in developing countries. That is why access to modern energy, in particular to electricity, has been one of the priority themes of the World Bank and other development organizations....

In public safety of less concern to poor people? What about people in poor areas? How is demand for public safety affected by income inequality? Is there a self-correcting mechanism whereby higher crime increases demand for public safety? The authors study subjective assessments of public safety...

Increasing demand for clean energy sources is expanding investment in natural gas infrastructure around the world. Many international projects involve pipelines connecting energy markets in two or more countries. A key feature of investment taking place in Latin America is the convergence of gas...