The Causal Effect of Drought on Energy Poverty

The Causal Effect of Drought on Energy Poverty | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The Causal Effect of Drought on Energy Poverty Yonas Alem, Leulseged L. Woldemichael This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8476883/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract We use nationally representative panel data from rural areas and small towns in Ethiopia, matched with fine-resolution weather data, to investigate the impact of drought on energy poverty. Energy poverty is measured using the Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI) and a multidimensional poverty status indicator. Fixed-effects regression estimates show that experiencing drought in the previous production year increases a household’s MEPI score by 0.019 points and raises the probability of being multidimensionally energy poor by 3.8%. We further demonstrate that the primary pathway through which drought affects energy poverty is through its adverse effect on per-capita income: experiencing drought in the previous production period reduces per-capita income by 33.7%. In contrast, we find that the energy poverty of households participating in Ethiopia’s major safety-net intervention—the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP)—is not significantly affected by drought, suggesting that the program effectively buffers participants from these shocks. Overall, our findings contribute to the growing literature on the economic costs of drought and underscore the critical role of well-targeted safety-net programs in mitigating climate-related vulnerabilities. JEL: Q40; Q54; O13; I32 Income shock Energy Poverty Ethiopia Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files AlemandWoldeLaTeXdocs.zip SupMatDataandCodes.zip Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 17 Mar, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 17 Feb, 2026 Reviews received at journal 17 Feb, 2026 Reviews received at journal 15 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 15 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 12 Feb, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 10 Feb, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 22 Jan, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 20 Jan, 2026 First submitted to journal 20 Jan, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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