Nepal suffered with severe shortage of electricity supply or load shedding in the last decade. Electricity load shedding is considered one of the major barriers to the country's economic development. This study uses a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic costs of...

This study proposes a novel supply-side mechanism driving economic structural transformation: grid electrification. Increasing electricity availability affects the reallocation of inputs to more productive activities through generating higher returns and lowering entry costs in sectors with...

The productivity of the world's natural resources is critically dependent on a variety of highly uncertain factors, which obscure individual investors and governments that seek to make long-term, sometimes irreversible investments in their exploration and utilization. These dynamic...

This study assesses the accuracy of time-series econometric methods in forecasting electricity demand in developing countries. The analysis of historical time series for 106 developing countries over 1960-2012 demonstrates that econometric forecasts are highly accurate for the majority of these...

This study argues that public infrastructure is an important though previously neglected driving mechanism of the structural transformation process. To assess its significance quantitatively, this study first develops a multisector neoclassical growth model with heterogeneous firms, where public...

Improving electricity access in low-income countries is a challenging problem because of the high costs of grid extension and low demand for grid electricity in rural areas. This study elucidates these constraints by analyzing poor households' willingness-to-pay for different types of...

This paper analyzes the important, yet often ignored, link between capital adjustment and the choice of fuels used by manufacturing firms. A novel econometric framework, which explicitly incorporates heterogeneous fuel-using capital stocks in the estimation of optimal fuel choice, is applied to...

Since the industrial revolution, the economic development of Western Europe and North America was characterized by continuous urbanization accompanied by a gradual phasing-in of urban land property rights over time. Today, however, the evidence in many fast urbanizing low-income countries points...

This study seeks to understand how materials scarcity and competition from alternative uses affects the potential for widespread deployment of solar electricity in the long run, in light of related technology and policy uncertainties. Simulation results of a computable partial equilibrium model...

What is second-generation biofuel technology worth to global society? A dynamic, computable partial equilibrium model (called FABLE) is used to assess changes in global land use for crops, livestock, biofuels, forestry, and environmental services, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, with and...