Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Impact of electrification on labor market, schooling and health outcomes in South Africa

电气化对一个国家的发展有什么影响？当家庭通电后，成人劳动力市场的结果以及儿童的教育和健康结果会发生什么变化？该项目从微观经济角度证明了能源基础设施在发展过程中的基本作用。证据来自南非最近的大规模电气化推广。在种族隔离结束后的5年里，1994-1999年，家庭电气化率以几乎前所未有的速度从36%上升到68%，成为“全面电气化”。该项目衡量电气化后有多少劳动力和上学时间被释放回经济，以及幼儿呼吸系统疾病相关死亡率下降的程度。它还侧重于确定这些影响是如何在家庭内部和家庭之间分布的。物质基础设施被认为是发展的基础，但对于这种关系如何运作，以及基础设施的影响应该有多大，人们几乎没有达成共识。本研究结合三个重要的研究元素，为这些问题提供了一些答案。首先，该项目使用了基础设施推出期间的数据，而这些数据通常很难获得。这些数据是高质量的人口普查数据（早期和后期的扩张），几个具有全国代表性的家庭调查和一个基于省份的家庭面板数据集。关于电气化的行政和技术数据以及南非一部分地区的死亡原因数据将补充这些调查。其次，本项目通过将匹配方法与差异中差异研究设计相结合，解决了基础设施的非随机分配问题。通过考虑网格扩展的地理限制，构建了一个令人信服的处理区域控制组。第三，该研究基于明确的时间使用框架，允许作者在特定地点寻找效果。该框架预测，电气化对妇女和儿童（他们在家庭生产中花费更多时间）的影响将大于对男性的影响，而呼吸道疾病死亡率对年幼儿童（他们在室内花费更多时间）的影响将大于对年长儿童的影响。更广泛的影响：联合国能源署（2006年）报告说，目前有16亿人用不上电。如果项目结果表明，电气化将使妇女融入劳动力市场，帮助儿童完成中学学业，并降低可预防的儿童死亡率，那么实现千年发展目标中的三个目标的又一工具将被发现。在非洲，超过60%的人仍然依赖传统燃料，这可能是一个强大的工具。此外，一旦电气化的一些不太明显的长期效益被衡量和包括在内，有关公共或私营部门基础设施发展的成本/效益决策可能会改变。最后，利用这笔赠款收集的电气化和健康数据将对其他研究人员和规划人员有用。在获得参与机构许可的情况下，电气化数据将作为现有南非小组调查的补充予以公布，而以电子方式获取的卫生数据将提供给有关的卫生和地方政府部门，供其用于规划和决策。

What is the developmental impact of electrifying a country? What happens to adult labor market outcomes and the schooling and health outcomes of children when households get electricity? This project provides evidence on the fundamental role of energy infrastructure in the development process from a microeconomic perspective. The evidence is drawn from South Africa's recent mass electrification roll-out. In 5 years after the end of apartheid, 1994-1999, household electrification rates increased at an almost unprecedented rate from 36% to 68% in a 'blanket electrification'. The project measures how much labor and school time is released back into the economy after this electrification and to what extent respiratory disease-related deaths in young children decline. It also focuses on determining how these effects are distributed within and across households.Physical infrastructure is believed to be fundamental to development and yet there is little consensus on how this relationship works or on how large the impact of infrastructure is supposed to be. This study provides some answers to these questions by combining three important research elements. First, the project uses data spanning periods of infrastructure roll-out that are generally hard to come by. The data are high quality Census data (early on and later in the expansion), several nationally representative household surveys and a province-based household panel data set. Administrative and technical data on electrification and mortality-cause data for one part of South Africa will supplement these surveys. Second, this project addresses the issue of non-random allocation of infrastructure by combining matching methods with a difference-in-differences research design. A convincing control group for treated areas is constructed by taking into account geographic constraints on grid expansion. Third, the research is based in an explicit time-use framework that allows the authors to look for effects in specific places. The framework predicts that the impact of electrification will be larger for women and children (who spend more time in home production) than for men, and respiratory disease deaths should fall more for younger children(who spend more time indoors) than for older children. Broader impact: UN-Energy (2006) reports that 1.6 billion people are currently without access to electricity. If the project results indicate that electrification integrates women into the labor market, helps children to complete secondary school and reduces preventable child mortality, then another tool for reaching three of the Millenium Development Goals will have been uncovered. This could be a powerful tool in Africa where over 60% of people still rely on traditional fuels. In addition, cost/benefit decisions about public or private sector infrastructure developments may be altered once some of the less obvious and longer term benefits of electrification are measured and included. Finally, the electrification and health data to be collected using this grant will be useful for other researchers and planners. With the permission of participating institutions, electrification data will be released as a supplement to an already available South African panel survey, while the electronically captured health data will be provided to relevant health and local government departments for use in planning and policy-making.