Energy in the Developing World

There is a remarkably clear relationship between the national income of countries across the globe and their energy consumption. The developed world uses more electricity. Meanwhile developing countries consume orders of magnitude less. Even today, there are about as many people alive who do not use electricity to light their homes as there were when Edison invented the light bulb. This course examines the nature of the energy-development relationship and selectively reviews recent research to investigate topics such as how access to electricity influences welfare, the reasons why many rural households lack power, whether decentralized renewables truly represent a solution to the energy access problem, the nature of consumer demand for electricity, and how social norms influence electricity markets in the developing world. Developing country settings are frequently characterized by dysfunctional domestic energy markets, high theft, low state capacity, widespread rationing, and subsidized tariffs. We will investigate how policy is framed in these settings and what we know about the factors that determine electricity supply and demand. The course includes space for detailed discussions with policy-makers to understand how energy policy is framed in practice and the extent to which academic research interacts with, and informs, state decision-making.