Energy poverty and household welfare: evidence in Togo

Abstract This paper assesses the effects of energy poverty on household welfare in Togo. To achieve this objective, this paper uses firstly the logit method to assess the determinants of energy poverty and the two least squares method to analyze its impact on household welfare and data from the Harmonized Household Living Conditions Survey (EHCVM, 2018). Our results show that energy poverty reduces household welfare: a 1% increase in energy poverty is associated with a 0.27% decrease in welfare. This general finding is robust to other ways of measuring well-being and energy poverty. Furthermore, we find that educational attainment is an important channel through which energy poverty reduces well-being. Our results underscore the need for policy decisions to address energy poverty, especially when it comes to improving household welfare. JEL: I31, I32, O13, Q41