As part of the Brown Bag Lunch series, the International Economics Department at the Graduate Institute is pleased to invite you to a public talk given by Enrico Nano, PhD Researcher in Development Economics.

Electrifying Nigeria: the Impact of Rural Access to Electricity on Kids' Schooling

by Enrico Nano

Abstract: In 2019, 770 million people still lacked access to electricity worldwide and 10% of this population is in Nigeria. Nevertheless, the country has received so far very little attention in this respect from the academic community. The economic literature also does not generally agree on the impact of household access to electricity on several development outcomes, despite being the object of several development policies and one of the key SDGs of the 2030 Agenda. This paper aims at filling these gaps by providing a better understanding of the short-term effect of electricity access on kids’ schooling in rural Nigeria. It also contributes to the methodological debate using a novel instrument in this context, namely the frequency of lightning strikes in the area surrounding households. The results show that electricity access leads to an increase in school enrolment and a decrease in the grade-for-age gap, a measure of educational performance. The paper discusses some of the mechanisms that can lead to the observed findings, their heterogeneity as well as the role of the quality of electricity received.