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Article summary:
1. Governments in developing countries are investing billions of dollars to increase electricity access in rural areas, but the literature on the impact of these investments has produced mixed results.
2. This article leverages a unique characteristic of household electrification policy in Uttar Pradesh, India, whereby only households within 40 m of an electricity pole are eligible for a legal electrical connection, to estimate the causal impact of electrification using a pre-registered instrumental variable design.
3. The results suggest that legal electrification has a positive impact on household expenditures, adult household activities, and ownership and usage of appliances.
Article analysis:
The article is generally trustworthy and reliable as it provides evidence from an original survey conducted in 2018 with 686 households across 120 habitations in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The authors also use a pre-registered instrumental variable design to identify the causal effect of legal electrification on various outcomes. Furthermore, they provide detailed hypotheses and results for three outcome families: expenditures, household activity and appliance ownership and use.
However, there are some potential biases that should be noted. Firstly, the sample size used may not be large enough to accurately represent all households in India or even just Uttar Pradesh. Secondly, the article does not explore any counterarguments or present both sides equally when discussing the effects of rural electrification. Additionally, there is no mention of possible risks associated with rural electrification such as environmental impacts or economic costs that could outweigh any potential benefits. Finally, while the authors do discuss some potential limitations to their study such as policy considerations driving expansion of grid access and short term impacts common in randomized controlled trials, they do not provide any further detail or evidence for these claims which could have strengthened their argument further.