Dissertation: Essays on the Demographic and Environmental Causes and Consequences of Energy Scarcity

I examine the distribution and effects of electricity rationing during acute energy crises in sub-Saharan Africa. As the foundation of my dissertation, I spent one year collecting data in South Africa to develop a novel high-frequency dataset and examine how chronic power outages were distributed across geography and sub-populations during the peak of South Africa’s energy crisis from August 2022 to July 2023. To construct the dataset, I combine public announcements of power cuts made by the national power company, outage schedules posted at the neighborhood level, and power load distribution trends to identify the frequency, duration, and timing of outages across more than 30,000 neighborhoods. I analyze the spatial variation in power outages and link census data aggregated at the municipality level with household and individual income data and labor force participation data to analyze how power distribution varies by demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods. Following from the distributional analysis, I investigate the relationship between population outcomes and energy reliability with specific attention to how power outages shape health and education outcomes at the community level.