Development through electrification: Evidence from rural China

This paper estimates the effects of a nation-wide rural electrification program in China using an informative dataset for 2459 Chinese villages. The combined propensity score matching and difference-in-differences approach is adopted to address potential selection bias. Accordingly, the program can significantly increase the net agricultural income per capita of farmers in the targeted villages. Moreover, matching grants with private assets and obligation labor force both can increase the effectiveness of the program. The program also highlights the complementarity between infrastructure and institution, in which the introduction of grassroots democracy will increase the effectivity of the rural electrification program.