Universal electricity access is an important element of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and global efforts to monitor progress in electrification have recently escalated. To inform these efforts, we describe a new database of total, rural, and urban electrification rates across...

As the cost of distributed power generation continues to decrease, technologies such as solar home systems and micro-grids become increasingly attractive in the quest for energy access. Here we show, however, that national rural electrification planning mostly continues to ignore distributed...

What explains variation in the energy-related climate policies that nations implement? In this paper we present a theory of energy-related climate policy in democratic countries, emphasizing the distributional effects of policies on important energy-related industries, public sentiment, and the...

Global petroleum subsidies peaked at USD 520 billion in the summer of 2008 and reached USD 212 billion in 2011, carrying high fiscal and environmental costs. Why do some countries spend so much money to subsidize petroleum consumption? Previous studies suggest that oil rich autocracies lacking...

One of the great questions for scholars of international relations and economics concerns the relationship between the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the natural environment. Does membership in the multilateral trade regime constrain environmental regulation and increase the environmental...

We propose that major powers give foreign aid to developing countries to facilitate politically costly economic reforms that preferential trading agreements prescribe. Democratic developing countries (i) need adjustment assistance more than autocracies and (ii) can credibly commit to using...