GREENER GROWTH: 3 ESSAY ON THE INTERSECTION OF ENERGY, EMISSIONS, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

This dissertation explains through what channels, and to what scope, increased electricity access impacts economic development, as well as how carbon emissions evolve alongside increasing electricity consumption in developing countries. In Chapter 1, I observe a positive association between rural electricity access and several measures of health, productivity, and education via an instrumental variable model. I use a series of historical rainfall shocks in hydroelectric-dependent nations as an instrument for variations in overall electricity access. I find no positive associations with productivity and unclear returns to average level of education associated with present-year rural electricity access, but I find a strong association of increased electricity access and decreased infant mortality. The objective of Chapter 2 is to better understand the impact energy mix, per capita income, and electricity access have on per capita electricity usage and carbon dioxide emissions electricity were most strongly predicted by multiple years of reduced access within a decade in developing countries. I investigate the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, which states that there is a reverse-U shaped relationship between GDP per capita and carbon emissions. Findings indicate the reverse U-shaped relationship between GDP per capita and electricity usage is not significant once an interaction between energy mix and electricity consumption is considered. Additionally, increasing the percentage of sustainably-generate electricity of all electricity consumed is associated with a strong decrease in emissions in developing countries. In Chapter 3, I analyze data from the China National Health and Nutrition survey to find correlations between changes in time usage and household’s recent acquisition/continued ownership of refrigerators and computers. I use a two-part framework to model the change in time usage after acquiring an appliance as the sum of the immediate “new opportunity” and persistent “daily usage” time effects of the appliance. I also include interaction terms to condition the “new opportunity” time effects on personal characteristics of gender, community, and highest level of education. Results show a significant, positive association between rural households acquiring their first computer and an increase in reported hours of work per week, as well as a positive relationship between ownership of each appliance and both childcare and hours worked.