{"type":"script","doc_desc":{"producers":[{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","abbr":"DECDI","affiliation":"World Bank - Development Impact Department","role":"Verification and preparation of metadata"}],"prod_date":"2026-02-12","version":"1"},"project_desc":{"authoring_entity":[{"name":"Megan Lang","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"mlang@worldbank.org"}],"title_statement":{"title":"Reproducibility package for Using Price Incentives To Bound Welfare From Pay As You Go Solar Electricity","idno":"RR_AFR_2026_563"},"data_statement":"Some data is restricted and has not been included in the reproducibility package. For more details, please refer to the README file. ","software":[{"name":"R","version":"4.5.2"}],"scripts":[{"title":"Reproducibility package for Using Price Incentives To Bound Welfare From Pay As You Go Solar Electricity","date":"2026-02","notes":"Computational reproducibility verified by Development Impact (DECDI) Analytics team, World Bank.","instructions":"See README in reproducibility package.","file_name":"RR_AFR_2026_563","zip_package":"RR_AFR_2026_563.zip","dependencies":"R dependencies are listed in the file renv.lock."}],"repository_uri":[{"name":"Reproducible Research Repository (World Bank)","uri":"https:\/\/reproducibility.worldbank.org"}],"production_date":"2026-02-12","abstract":"Quantifying the welfare effects of rural electrification is often hindered by non-price barriers that depress demand at the adoption margin. I study demand for pas-as-you-go (PAYGo) solar using a randomized experiment with 800 existing PAYGo customers in Kenya and Rwanda post-adoption. The experiment randomly assigns incentives that lower the effective price of usage for consumers who meet monthly purchase thresholds. Although average demand is unresponsive, consumers with the highest pre-experimental demand increase their purchases by 6\u20137% in response to the incentive. I use these responses to estimate a lower bound on consumer surplus from PAYGo solar. Although I find large gains for high-demand consumers, benefits deteriorate substantially for low-demand consumers. Combining my estimates with evidence from the literature on the environmental externalities of solar home systems, I calculate that the marginal value of public funds of PAYGo solar subsidies is at most 1.7 in Kenya and 2 in Rwanda.","geographic_units":[{"name":"Africa","code":"AFR"}],"keywords":[{"name":"Electricity Access"},{"name":"Welfare"},{"name":"Solar"}],"topics":[{"id":"D1","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Household Behavior and Family Economics","parent_id":"D"},{"id":" D6","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Welfare Economics","parent_id":"D"},{"id":" H2","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue","parent_id":"H"},{"id":" O2","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Development Planning and Policy","parent_id":"O"},{"id":" Q4","uri":"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/econlit\/jelCodes.php?view=jel","vocabulary":"Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)","name":"Energy","parent_id":"Q"}],"output":[{"type":"Working Paper","description":"Policy Research Working Papers (PRWP)","title":"Using Price Incentives To Bound Welfare From Pay As You Go Solar Electricity"}],"language":[{"name":"English","code":"EN"}],"technology_requirements":"Run time: ~ 90 minutes","disclaimer":"The materials in the reproducibility packages are distributed as they were prepared by the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development\/The World Bank. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this event do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, the Executive Directors of the World Bank, or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the materials included in the reproducibility package.","license":[{"name":"Modified BSD3","uri":"https:\/\/opensource.org\/license\/bsd-3-clause\/"}],"contacts":[{"name":"Megan Lang","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"mlang@worldbank.org"},{"name":"Reproducibility WBG","affiliation":"World Bank","email":"reproducibility@worldbank.org"}],"technology_environment":"Paper exhibits were reproduced on a computer with the following specifications:\n\u2022 OS: Windows 11 Enterprise\n\u2022 Processor: INTEL(R) XEON(R) PLATINUM 8562Y+ 2.80 GHz (4 processors)\n\u2022 Memory available: 32.0 GB","reproduction_instructions":"To reproduce the findings in this paper, a replicator must:\n1. **Secure Access to Data:** Access the datasets not included in the package. See subsection Datasets for more details.\n2. **Download and Place Data:** Once the data is accessed, users should place it in the appropriate folder.\n3. **Run the Package:** After placing the data in the folder, open the R project \"Bounding PAYGo Welfare Replication\" and run the script \"Replication - Proprietary Data\".\n\nSince all the data is not included, the package includes the results produced by replicators. These files can be used to review the results presented in the paper. \n","datasets":[{"name":"Rwanda - Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey (EICV5)","citation":" National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (December 2017). \u201cIntegrated Household Living Conditions Survey(2016-2017), Version 0.1 of the public use dataset\u201d. provided by the National Data Archive.\n","uri":"https:\/\/microdata.statistics.gov.rw\/index.php\/catalog\/82","access_type":"Data is publicly available but does not allow redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","note":"The EICV5 survey (Enqu\u00eate Int\u00e9grale sur les Conditions de Vie des m\u00e9nages) was conducted over a 12-month cycle from October 2016 to October 2017. Data collection was divided into 10 cycles in order to represent seasonality in the income and consumption data. Data accessed in April 2025. \nFile location: Data\/rwa-nisr-EICV5-data_STATA.\nFiles: cs_S0_S5_Household.dta; cs_S1_S2_S3_S4_S6A_S6E_Person.dta; cs_S8A3_expenditure.dta; cs_S8B_expenditure.dta\n","license_uri":"https:\/\/microdata.statistics.gov.rw\/index.php\/catalog\/82\/study-description#page=accesspolicy&tab=study-desc"},{"name":"Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2015-2016","uri":"https:\/\/statistics.knbs.or.ke\/nada\/index.php\/catalog\/13","citation":"Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (2016). \u201cKenya Integrated Household Budget Survey 2015-2016\u201d. Provided by the Kenya National Data Archive.\n","license_uri":"https:\/\/statistics.knbs.or.ke\/nada\/index.php\/catalog\/13\/study-description#metadata-data_access","access_type":"Data is publicly available but does not allow redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","note":"The 2015\/16 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey (KIHBS) was conducted over a 12-month period to obtain up-to-date data on a range of socioeconomic indicators used to monitor the implementation of development initiatives. Data accessed in April 2025. \nFile location: Data\/KIHBS.\nFiles: Consumption_aggregate.dta; Energy_use.dta\n"},{"citation":"Lang, Megan. 2025. \u201cPartial Replication Data for 'The Role of Market Frictions in Demand for Prepaid Electricity';\u201d Harvard Dataverse. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.7910\/DVN\/ATY3PU","uri":"https:\/\/dataverse.harvard.edu\/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910\/DVN\/ATY3PU","license":"CC0 1.0 Universal","license_uri":"https:\/\/dataverse.harvard.edu\/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910\/DVN\/ATY3PU","access_type":"Data is publicly available and included in the reproducibility package.","note":"Data from a phone survey conducted with BBOXX customers who were part of the experiment in winter 2019. The anonymized version of this survey can be downloaded at the link below. Data accessed in April 2019. \nFiles: Data\/phone_survey.csv\n","name":"Phone Survey Data"},{"note":"Customer-level data on system size adopted, date of adoption, who was offered the price incentives, and all customer payments in the study period. These data start in March, 2018 and continue through February, 2019. The customer-level data is proprietary and can only be obtained by signing a data sharing agreement with BBOXX Ltd. Data accessed in March 2019.\nFile location: Data.\nFiles: Final_90days.csv; ipa_bboxx.csv; IPA_IDs.csv; KE_Monthly.Rda; KE_Pmts.Rda; raw_kenya_large.csv; raw_rwanda_large.csv; RW_Monthly.Rda; RW_Pmts.Rda; use.Rda; weights2.csv; weights2_Kenya.csv\n","access_type":"Data access was granted directly to the study authors by the data owners\/managers. It was obtained with a custom data license that does not allow for redistribution and it is not included in the reproducibility package.","name":"BBOXX Ltd. Administrative Customer-Level Data (2018\u20132019)","citation":"BBOXX Ltd. 2019. Administrative Customer-Level Data on System Adoption, Pricing Incentives, and Payments (March 2018\u2013February 2019) [dataset]."}]},"tags":[{"tag":"DOI"},{"tag":"Open Code"},{"tag":"Restricted Data"}],"schematype":"script"}