Too big to be ignored

Too big to be ignored: How energy poverty undermines productive efficiency

Ndubuisi, G.O. (TU Delft Economics of Technology and Innovation; University of Johannesburg)
Denis, Yuni (National University of Lesotho)
Urom, Christian (Paris School of Business)
Abid, Ilyes (ISC Paris Business School)

2023

Productive efficiency has far-reaching implications on the direction of economic growth and welfare. While this has led to an expansive literature on the drivers of productive efficiency, this literature has proceeded without considering the role of energy poverty. Yet, energy poverty affects productive efficiency on several fronts. This paper fills this knowledge gap, u. sing a sample comprising 100 developing countries for the period 2000–2017. W e found robust evidence suggesting that energy poverty negatively affects productive efficiency—i.e., energy-poor countries become productively inefficient. Further analysis in the paper revealed that this negative effect persists largely across regions and is not sensitive to cross-country differences in income level. We also found that the negative effect of energy poverty on productive efficiency becomes more pronounced at a higher level of productive efficiency. We discuss the policy implications of our findings.

Developing countries
Energy poverty
Productive efficiency

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:72b0c8b3-8c9d-4ca7-ab3e-fbc7e45fa4b6

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113733

0301-4215

Energy Policy, 181

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 G.O. Ndubuisi, Yuni Denis, Christian Urom, Ilyes Abid