Household electrification, food consumption and welfare nexus in Sri Lanka: an intertemporal analysis

Abstract

A growing body of literature suggests that access to electricity has a positive impact on household’s living standards and social welfare. This paper sheds new light on this discussion. Using expenditure dependent equivalence scales, this paper examines the impact of electricity access on food consumption economies of scale (FCES) and thereby the poverty measurements of households with and without access to electricity in Sri Lanka during 1990-2016. Results indicate that a low-income household of four adults with access to electricity spends about 20% less on food compared to a similar household without access to electricity. The results also reveal that although the incorporation of FCES into poverty measurements reduces the overall poverty levels considerably, the reduction in poverty levels is about 1.2% higher for households with electricity at the national level. These observations are consistent across the national and sub-national levels, however, with varying magnitude.