Low income energy assistance and disconnection in France

Abstract

Electricite de France, the French monopoly provider of electricity, has been testing a number of new policy instruments to avoid disconnection among its low income customers. This paper uses decentralization, a common feature of social programmes, to identify the impact of Electricite de France's energy assistance programmes on the probability of disconnection for households with difficulties of payment. Naive estimates of programme impact are shown to be seriously biased.