Jobs! Electricity shortages and unemployment in Africa

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mensah, Justice Tei
• 署名单位: The World Bank
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2023.103231
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: Electricity outages; jobs; EMPLOYMENT; FIRMS; FDI; AFRICA

摘要

To what extent does unreliable electricity provision pervasive in many African countries affect job creation in the region? I address this question by assembling household and firm-level data from 29 African countries along with unique project-level data on foreign direct investment (FDI). Leveraging several quasi-experimental approaches, I find that outages have a non-trivial negative impact on employment. The effect is driven by a reduction in employment in non-agricultural sectors and skilled jobs. Unskilled jobs are unaffected by electricity outages. The negative effect of outages on firm entry and the performance of incumbent firms are plausible channels.