Subsidies, Information, and Energy-Efficient Cookstove Adoption - a Natural Field Experiment in Rural Ethiopia
Energy-efficient biomass cookstoves are an important technology for nearly 3 billion people relying on biomass for cooking in the Global South. This paper assesses the price-responsiveness of stove demand and the role of information about health and economic benefits from stove usage. We evaluate a pilot program that randomized different subsidy schemes (no subsidy, 40%, 70%, and 100% subsidy) and information treatments on the benefits of these stoves across 292 Ethiopian villages. Unlike several previous willingness-to-pay studies we examine a take-it-or-leave-it approach in a natural setting. We observe that stove demand is highly price-sensitive: there is virtually no uptake in the no-subsidy group, irrespective of which information about benefits households received. Uptake increases considerably for households who received a high subsidy (70% or 100%). Adding information on economic benefits nearly doubles uptake when coupled with such high subsidies. Our results confirm the emerging picture in the literature suggesting that subsidization fosters adoption considerably.
Malan, M., M. Voors, J. Ankel-Peters, S. Seje, L. Heuberger, D. Seid and A. Mitiku (2026), Subsidies, Information, and Energy-Efficient Cookstove Adoption - a Natural Field Experiment in Rural Ethiopia. Energy Economics, 161, 109474