Rural Electrification in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

Rural electrification is widely promoted to improve livelihoods, yet its land-use consequences in forest frontiers remain unclear. Using longitudinal household surveys linked to property boundaries and satellite land cover in the Brazilian Amazon, we apply heterogeneity-robust staggered-adoption difference-in-differences. Electrification increases cattle income over the medium term but has no detectable effect on annual property-level deforestation. Income gains appear to reflect herd expansion on existing pasture and a modest refrigerated-milk price premium rather than higher per-animal productivity.