Rural electrification in Cambodia: does it improve the welfare of households?

Abstract

This study uses subsamples of socio-economic surveys from 2004 and 2011 to construct village panel data and apply the difference-in-differences (DID) method to examine the impact of rural electrification on household consumption and children’s education in Cambodia at the village level. Conditional on the DID assumption and observed village and household characteristics, rural electrification increased household consumption by approximately 16.6%. This study also finds that higher-quintile households benefited more. Additionally, rural electrification increased boys’ years of schooling completed by 0.85 and girls’ years of schooling completed by 0.62. It also increased the probability of having ever been enrolled in primary school for boys by approximately 9.7% but did not increase the probability of having ever been enrolled for girls.