# **5 Empirical results**

## **5.1 Descriptive statistics**

Table (2) presents a summary of our treatment variables (power constraints) in this study. With respect to power outages, 16,816 firms out of 30,403 firms faced power outages, or about 53.6% of the firms in our sample. In addition, for 19,551 firms, power is an obstacle, representing 62.3% of firms. Of these firms, 17.6% faced minor obstacles in the power sector, 15.1% faced moderate obstacles, 16.2% faced major obstacles, 13.2% faced severe obstacles, and 11.7% considered power to be the major challenge in their operations. Finally, while outages are one of the main manifestations of constraints in the power sector in these countries, there are a number of other constraints (high cost of power, voltage fluctuations, connection problems, etc.) that are not readily observable through the survey data. Indeed, we can see here that 32.7% of the firms that faced obstacles did not experience any outages. Similarly, 39.1% of firms that experienced minor obstacles, 28.3% of firms that experienced moderate obstacles, 28.9% of firms that experienced major obstacles, 33.8% of firms that experienced severe obstacles, and 27.2% of firms that reported power as their greatest challenge.

Table 2: Summary statistics on the treatment variables

||**No Outages**|**Outages**|**Total**|**No Outages**|**Outages**|**Total**|**No Outages**|**Outages**|**Total**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||Count||Ro|w percent|ages|Colu|mn percen|tages|
|**Power is an obstacle**||||||||||
|No|8,198|3,654|11,852|69.2%|30.8%|100.0%|56.2%|21.7%|37.7%|
|Yes|6,388|13,163|19,551|32.7%|67.3%|100.0%|43.8%|78.3%|62.3%|
|**Total**|14,587|16,816|31,403|46.4%|53.6%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|
|**Power as minor obstacle**||||||||||
|No|12,420|13,446|25,865|48.0%|52.0%|100.0%|85.1%|80.0%|82.4%|
|Yes|2,167|3,371|5,538|39.1%|60.9%|100.0%|14.9%|20.0%|17.6%|
|**Total**|14,587|16,816|31,403|46.4%|53.6%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|
|**Power as moderate obstacle**||||||||||
|No|13,242|13,406|26,648|49.7%|50.3%|100.0%|90.8%|79.7%|84.9%|
|Yes|1,345|3,410|4,755|28.3%|71.7%|100.0%|9.2%|20.3%|15.1%|
|**Total**|14,587|16,816|31,403|46.4%|53.6%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|
|**Power as major obstacle**||||||||||
|No|13,114|13,191|26,305|49.9%|50.1%|100.0%|89.9%|78.4%|83.8%|
|Yes|1,472|3,625|5,098|28.9%|71.1%|100.0%|10.1%|21.6%|16.2%|
|**Total**|14,587|16,816|31,403|46.4%|53.6%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|
|**Power as severe obstacle**||||||||||
|No|13,182|14,060|27,242|48.4%|51.6%|100.0%|90.4%|83.6%|86.8%|
|Yes|1,404|2,756|4,161|33.8%|66.2%|100.0%|9.6%|16.4%|13.2%|
|**Total**|14,587|16,816|31,403|46.4%|53.6%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|
|**Power as biggest obstacle**||||||||||
|<br>No|13,097|13,835|26,932|48.6%|51.4%|100.0%|93.1%|84.2%|88.3%|
|Yes|968|2,588|3,556|27.2%|72.8%|100.0%|6.9%|15.8%|11.7%|
|**Total**|14,065|16,423|30,488|46.1%|53.9%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|100.0%|
|**N**|11,808|18,680|30,488|||||||

Table (3) shows that 52.9% of our firms are small firms employing fewer than 20 people, and 35.3% are intermediate firms employing between 20 and 99 people. Finally, large firms (more than 100 employees) represent 11.8% of firms. For each category of these firms, the frequency of experiencing outages exceeds 50 percent. On the other hand, only 19.1% of firms invest in R&D, and of these, a significant 62.3% are roughly firms that suffer from power constraints. Similarly, of the 21.5% of firms that own back-up generators, 77.2% are actually firms that face power constraints.

The next figures present some stylized facts. In Figure (1), the white lines in the middle of the boxes 12