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Faraz Usmani
Faraz Usmani is an environmental economist, with research interests at the intersection of environment, energy, and development. In addition to being a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University, he is currently a Doctoral Student Fellow at the Duke University Energy Initiative, and a Doctoral Scholar at the Duke Global Health Institute.
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Rural electrification and structural transformation: A guar(anteed) bet?
Is large-scale electrification necessary for the structural transformation of rural economies? This article combines two natural experiments in India – an exogenous agricultural boom in the northwest of the country with the simultaneous nationwide roll-out of its rural electrification scheme – to shed light on this question. It shows that electrification significantly increased non-agricultural employment in villages where economic opportunity complemented infrastructure. When these complementary conditions were lacking, electrification had almost no discernible impact.
