Adoption of improved cooking stoves and socio-economic impacts. Evidence from Burkina Faso using a quasi-experimental design
Prof. Dr. Michael Grimm, University of Passau
More than a third of the world’s population relies on woodfuels for cooking, mostly in developing countries causing financial and workload burdens on households as well as detri¬mental implications for people’s health and the environment. Efficiency-enhancing improved cooking stoves (ICS) have long been the evident instrument to simultaneously counter these adverse aspects that go along with traditional cooking. This paper evaluates the impacts of an intervention, in which the implementing agency supports the dissemination of low-cost ICS in urban Burkina Faso. We investigate woodfuel consumption and time expenditure. Furthermore, we examine potential program spillovers that arise as ICS imitations produced by non-supported whitesmiths entered the market. To this end, we use meal-specific data collected among a representative sample of 1,473 households under day-to-day conditions. Applying multivariate regression techniques in combination with a matching process, we determine ICS savings rates of around 25 percent for firewood stoves and 10 percent for charcoal stoves per dish, whereas sizable time savings could not be observed. Our findings furthermore indicate that – although not intended by the program – imitated ICS also generate statistically significant savings. The disseminated ICS are found to be a cost-effective simple technology and a profitable investment from the household’s perspective. Because of the rather subtle savings, though, they do not constitute a leapfrog in combating deforestation pressures or health effects related to smoke emissions.
Date: 18 April 2013
Time: 12:30 - 13:30 CET
