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Information and energy policy preferences: a survey experiment on public opinion about electricity pricing reform in rural India

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Abstract

A common argument for the lack of economic reform in developing countries is popular opposition. If current economic policies are dysfunctional, could information about alternatives sway the voters? We examine if a simple argument emphasizing the need to increase electricity prices for improved supply can change public opinion in the case of India’s power sector reforms. The evidence comes from a survey experiment in rural Uttar Pradesh, which is both India’s largest state and has one of the lowest levels of household electrification. As expected, people respond to information about the relationship between electricity pricing, capacity investment, and reliability of supply by increasing their support for higher prices. However, no corresponding increase is observed for privatization of electricity generation. For external validity, we analyze an existing national survey on electricity privatization conducted in 2004/2005, finding patterns that support our argument.

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Notes

  1. See http://cercind.gov.in/08022007/Act-with-amendment.pdf for the full text of the 2003 Electricity Act. Accessed on November 19, 2012.

  2. See http://www.powermin.nic.in/JSP_SERVLETS/internal.jsp for the Ministry of Power’s website on rural electrification. Accessed on July 24, 2013.

  3. “Executive Summary Shahjahanpur District.” See http://www.icssr.org/Executive%20Summary%20-%20Shahjahanpur.pdf. Accessed on March 18, 2014.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) at Columbia University for financial support and the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in New Delhi for research support. We thank the Mass Oriented Research and Social Elevation Lab (MORSEL) for conducting the surveys. We are grateful to seminar audiences at Columbia University and CEEW for their thoughts. Patrick Bayer gratefully acknowledges funding from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. We are grateful to Catalina Angel for careful proofreading of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, New York University, 19 West 4th Street, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Michaël Aklin & S. P. Harish

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, 4600 Wesley W. Posvar Hall, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Michaël Aklin

  3. Department of Political Science, Program in International & Area Studies, Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA

    Patrick Bayer

  4. Department of Politics, Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Johannes Urpelainen

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  1. Michaël Aklin
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Correspondence to Patrick Bayer.

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Aklin, M., Bayer, P., Harish, S.P. et al. Information and energy policy preferences: a survey experiment on public opinion about electricity pricing reform in rural India. Econ Gov 15, 305–327 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-014-0146-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10101-014-0146-5

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