Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms

Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms

Entrepreneurs in developing countries report that unreliable electricity imposes a serious constraint, yet little evidence exists on how blackouts impact the micro-firms that account for the majority of employment. This article estimates the effects of outages on small firms using original firm-level panel data and finds evidence of differential effects by firm size. Firms without employees experience large reductions in revenues and profits. Outages have no measurable effect on the output of firms with employees, where worker hours increase, weekly wages paid decrease, and the analysis fails to reject the null hypothesis that blackouts have no effect on (average firm-level) worker hourly wages.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hardy, Morgan, McCasland, Jamie
Format: Journal Article biblioteca
Language:en_US
Published: Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2019-11-09
Subjects:INFRASTRACTURE, MICROENTERPRISES, ELECTRICITY,
Online Access:https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40278
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spelling dig-okr-10986402782024-01-10T14:27:36Z Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms Hardy, Morgan McCasland, Jamie INFRASTRACTURE MICROENTERPRISES ELECTRICITY Entrepreneurs in developing countries report that unreliable electricity imposes a serious constraint, yet little evidence exists on how blackouts impact the micro-firms that account for the majority of employment. This article estimates the effects of outages on small firms using original firm-level panel data and finds evidence of differential effects by firm size. Firms without employees experience large reductions in revenues and profits. Outages have no measurable effect on the output of firms with employees, where worker hours increase, weekly wages paid decrease, and the analysis fails to reject the null hypothesis that blackouts have no effect on (average firm-level) worker hourly wages. 2023-08-28T19:13:13Z 2023-08-28T19:13:13Z 2019-11-09 Journal Article The World Bank Economic Review 0258-6770 (print) 1564-698X (online) https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40278 en_US World Bank Economic Review CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank application/pdf Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
institution Banco Mundial
collection DSpace
country Estados Unidos
countrycode US
component Bibliográfico
access En linea
databasecode dig-okr
tag biblioteca
region America del Norte
libraryname Biblioteca del Banco Mundial
language en_US
topic INFRASTRACTURE
MICROENTERPRISES
ELECTRICITY
INFRASTRACTURE
MICROENTERPRISES
ELECTRICITY
spellingShingle INFRASTRACTURE
MICROENTERPRISES
ELECTRICITY
INFRASTRACTURE
MICROENTERPRISES
ELECTRICITY
Hardy, Morgan
McCasland, Jamie
Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms
description Entrepreneurs in developing countries report that unreliable electricity imposes a serious constraint, yet little evidence exists on how blackouts impact the micro-firms that account for the majority of employment. This article estimates the effects of outages on small firms using original firm-level panel data and finds evidence of differential effects by firm size. Firms without employees experience large reductions in revenues and profits. Outages have no measurable effect on the output of firms with employees, where worker hours increase, weekly wages paid decrease, and the analysis fails to reject the null hypothesis that blackouts have no effect on (average firm-level) worker hourly wages.
format Journal Article
topic_facet INFRASTRACTURE
MICROENTERPRISES
ELECTRICITY
author Hardy, Morgan
McCasland, Jamie
author_facet Hardy, Morgan
McCasland, Jamie
author_sort Hardy, Morgan
title Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms
title_short Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms
title_full Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms
title_fullStr Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms
title_full_unstemmed Lights Off, Lights On: The Effects of Electricity Shortages on Small Firms
title_sort lights off, lights on: the effects of electricity shortages on small firms
publisher Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate 2019-11-09
url https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/40278
work_keys_str_mv AT hardymorgan lightsofflightsontheeffectsofelectricityshortagesonsmallfirms
AT mccaslandjamie lightsofflightsontheeffectsofelectricityshortagesonsmallfirms
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