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Electricity Tariffs Power Outages and Firm Performance: A Comparative Analysis
March 23, 2017DECRG Kuala Lumpur Seminar Series

Many countries struggle to provide adequate electricity services to the private sector. While the importance of infrastructure for economic growth is widely acknowledge, limited research has been dedicated on how electricity sector outcomes impact firm performance. The paper presents new measures from the Doing Business Getting Electricity (GE) indicator for 190 economies, namely macro data for electricity tariffs and power outages. The objective of the paper is to test the relationship between electricity sector characteristics, as measured by Doing Business, and firm performance. I first show that power outages and electricity tariffs are associated to firm behavior in terms of the demand for energy inputs. I then employ a similar specification than Geginat and Ramalho (2015) using World Bank Enterprise Surveys to find that, in a cross sectional sample of 80 economies, outages are negatively associated with firm productivity. Electricity tariffs are also negatively associated to productivity but only for small and medium enterprises.

  • Jean Arlet

    Jean Arlet joined the Doing Business team in March 2013. He currently works on the Getting Electricity indicator and previously covered the Trading across Borders topic. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Jean was a business strategy consultant and advised clients in energy, utilities, and telecommunication. He also worked for the OECD's private sector development branch and economic advisory firm Garten Rothkopf. Jean holds a dual Master's degree in International Affairs (MIA) from Columbia University and the Institut d'¨¦tudes politiques de Paris (Sciences-Po), as well as a Bachelor's degree in Economics from McGill. He speaks French and is conversant in Spanish. He is currently based at the World Bank office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
EVENT DETAILS:
  • WHEN: Thursday, March 23, 2017; 12:30-2:00PM
  • WHERE: World Bank Malaysia Office, Level 3, Sasana Kijang, No. 2, Jalan Dato¡¯ Onn
  • RSVP: Kindly RSVP by Wednesday, March 22, 2017