Publication - One-Off Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption: Experimental Evidence on Improved Cooking Stoves in Senegal
From energypedia
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.
►Add a New Publication
►See All Latest Publications
Title
One-Off Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption: Experimental Evidence on Improved Cooking Stoves in Senegal
Publisher
Environment for Development (EfD)
Author
Gunther Bensch, Jörg Peters
Published in
November 2017
Abstract
Free technology distribution can be an effective development policy instrument if adoption is socially inefficient and hampered by affordability constraints. Yet, policy makers often oppose free distribution, arguing that reference dependence spoils the willingness to pay and thus market potentials in the long run. For improved cookstoves, this paper studies the willingness to pay six years after a randomized one-time free distribution. Using a real-purchase offer procedure, we find that households who received a free stove in the past do not reveal a lower willingness to pay to repurchase the stove. Furthermore, we provide exploratory evidence that learning and reference-dependence effects do not spill over from the treatment to the control group. The policy implication is that one-time free distribution does not disturb future market establishment and might even facilitate it.
URL
Admin:
No
