Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

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Journal of Development Economics

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/devec

Regular Article

Cooking that kills: Cleaner energy access, indoor air pollution, and health
Imelda
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Calle Madrid, 126, 28903, Getafe, Spain

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

JEL classification: Dirty cooking fuels are a significant source of indoor air pollution in developing countries, resulting in millions
I12 of premature deaths. This paper investigates the health impacts of household access to cleaner fuel using a
J13 nationwide fuel-switching program, the largest household energy transition project ever attempted in the devel-
O15
oping world, affecting more than 50 million homes in Indonesia. This program focused on replacing a dirty
Q48
cooking fuel (kerosene) with a cleaner one (liquid petroleum gas). The difference-in-differences estimates and
Q52
within-mother estimates suggest that the program led to a significant decline in infant mortality with the effects
concentrated on the perinatal period. The program also reduced the prevalence of low birth weight, suggesting
Keywords:
that fetal exposure to indoor air pollutants is an important channel. These findings elucidate how a policy that
Energy access
combines a subsidy on the use of cleaner-burning fuel with a restriction on the dirty fuel can pay public health
Indoor air pollution
Infant mortality dividends.
Cooking fuel
LPG
Indonesia

1. Introduction In this study, I estimate the health impact of household access

To what extent does indoor air quality affect health? While most
of the existing studies focus on the impact of outdoor air pollution
on health, people tend to be more exposed to indoor than outdoor
pollution because individuals spend more time indoors and closer to
the sources of indoor pollutants (Bennett et al., 2002; Oliveira et al.,
2017).1 Indeed, millions of lives are lost annually due to illnesses
attributable to indoor air pollution (IHME, 2016).
Despite the high economic cost associated with indoor air pollu-
tion, its causal impact on health is inconclusive, mainly due to data and
methodological challenges (Duflo et al., 2008). For example, the health
effects from exposure to indoor air pollutants are often confounded by
other unobserved determinants of health. Moreover, since current stud-
ies largely focus on adult diseases, the health effects reported in those
studies may be biased by individuals’ past exposure to the pollutants. In
addition, large variations in indoor air pollution exposure across homes
and individuals, coupled with the smaller number of observations, lead
to imprecise estimates in existing studies.
to cleaner energy using a nationwide fuel transition program, which
encouraged households to switch from a relatively dirty cooking fuel
(kerosene2 ) to a much cleaner cooking fuel (liquid petroleum gas,
LPG) in Indonesia. In 2007, pressured by the rising cost of subsidizing
kerosene, the Vice President of Indonesia set an ambitious goal of con-
verting 42 million households to using LPG by 2012 (WLPGA, 2012).
Intended to reduce the cost of subsidizing kerosene, this program suc-
cessfully reached more than 70% of the total population in Indonesia,
resulting in a sharp drop in kerosene consumption and an increase in
LPG consumption. Due to the exceptional rate of switching to a cleaner
fuel, this program is one of only a small number of successful large-scale
fuel transitions in the developing world.
A particularly unique feature of this intervention is that it combines
a price subsidy on clean fuel with a quantity restriction on dirty fuel,
leading to a high adoption rate and preventing households from revert-
ing back to using dirty fuel. During the expansion years, some districts
received LPG earlier than the others because of implementation con-
straints. By exploiting these plausibly exogenous policy-induced varia-

E-mail address: iimelda@eco.uc3m.es.

1
Cooking with dirty fuel produces dangerous pollutants, reaching up to 100 times the safe levels recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Hence,
it is known to be one of the biggest sources of indoor air pollution in developing countries.
2 For the first time, the WHO recently reclassified kerosene from “clean fuel” (the same category as gas and electricity), to “dirty fuel’’, putting it in the same class

as biomass (WHO, 2016).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102548
Received 14 July 2019; Received in revised form 10 June 2020; Accepted 1 August 2020
Available online 23 August 2020
0304-3878/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
0 Imelda
tions in household cooking fuel, I am able to show the causal effects
of the clean energy transition on health, thus overcoming the method-
ological challenges of earlier studies.
This study augments the literature that addresses the causal link
between indoor air pollution and health. Studies on cook-stove inter-
vention using randomized controlled trials have made a substantial
contribution to this topic (see, e.g., RESPIRE in Guatemala Smith et
al., 2011; GRAPHS in Ghana Asante et al., 2019; in India Hanna et al.,
2016; in Malawi Mortimer et al., 2017; in Nigeria Alexander et al.,
2018; among others). However, existing experimental evidence may
lack statistical power due to a small number of observations. More
importantly, a highly controlled environment may not capture some
important behavioral aspects and, hence, lack external validity if such
an intervention would have been implemented on a larger scale. A
few studies have adopted an instrumental variable approach to address
the endogeneity of indoor pollutant exposures by using gender-specific
hierarchies (Pitt et al., 2006) and distance from the community to the
nearest market as the instrument (Silwal and McKay, 2015). In con-
trast, the current work uses a large-scale enforced policy experiment to
address potential identification issues present in earlier studies. It also
documents the underlying mechanism behind the health findings—a
significant contribution compared to existing studies that exploited the
same intervention (Imelda, 2018a; Imelda and Verma, 2019).
This work makes three novel contributions to the literature. First, it
addresses the external validity issue using a policy experiment that has
affected more than 50 million homes. The number of observations in
the existing experimental studies is generally not large, thus raising the
common concern on its representativeness (Hanna et al., 2016). More
importantly, this study addresses the lingering selection bias that likely
arises from voluntary adoption.
Second, this study focuses on infant mortality, a well-known mea-
sure of population health but a challenging one to explore in an experi-
mental setting due to its rare occurrence. Even though the clear benefits
of focusing on infants have been identified,3 current attempts to study
them in the indoor air pollution context are hindered by a limited num-
ber of observations paired with short study periods.4 Therefore, to my
knowledge, this study is the first large-scale empirical analysis to focus
on infant mortality as an attempt to uncover the causal relationships
among clean cooking, indoor air pollution, and health.
The third contribution of this study is that it addresses the omitted
variable bias, which is often raised due to the use of only selective pol-
lutants in evaluating the health impact of indoor air pollution. Existing
experimental studies on dirty cooking fuel mostly focus on selective pol-
lutant measurement (e.g., PM2.5 or carbon monoxide) even though the
health effects of dirty cooking fuel can also be driven by other omitted
pollutants.5 This paper provides a solution to these problems by using
the policy experiment as a source of variation for the total pollutants
that are associated with the fuel-switching.
I compare changes in infant mortality in the “treated” districts to
changes in infant mortality in the “planned-but-untreated” districts
3
There are at least two advantages: (1) infants and pregnant mothers spend
much more time indoors and are particularly more vulnerable to the environ-
mental risk as compared to other household members; (2) it helps establish a
strong and immediate connection between pollution exposure and health since
it excludes the unknown accumulation of pollution exposure over one’s life-
time (Chay and Greenstone, 2003; Currie and Neidell, 2005; Currie and Walker,
2011).
4
In general, randomized controlled trials have limited sample sizes as well as
short study periods (i.e., up to two years). Only Hanna et al. (2016) investigate
the long-term health effects of improved cook-stoves over four years among
2575 households in India.
5
There may be differences in the toxic effects of the pollutant mixtures from
the two fuels, which will not be sufficiently captured by only looking at selective
pollutants. For instance, a case-control study in Nepal finds that kerosene cook-
ing was a stronger risk factor for tuberculosis than biomass cooking (Pokhrel et
al., 2010).
2
Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548
using the Indonesian Demographic and Health Surveys and the admin-
istrative data of the program.6 The main threat to causal identifica-
tion is that the timing of the program implementation might be associ-
ated with unobserved factors that may have otherwise influenced infant
mortality in the treated districts. However, I demonstrate that similar
pre-implementation trends in infant mortality exist in both treated and
planned-but-untreated districts. I also show that the program timing
has no association with the trends in the observable characteristics at
baseline, suggesting that the planned-but-untreated districts are a valid
counterfactual for the treated districts in the absence of the program.
Furthermore, using within-mother comparison and matching method, I
show that the results are largely robust.
The findings indicate that the program has led to a significant
decrease in infant mortality, with effects concentrated on the perina-
tal period. The program lowered infant mortality by 16%–34% percent,
implying that 137–293 infant deaths were averted among the 19,571
live births observed in the districts targeted in 2009–2011. The program
also lowered the prevalence of low birth weight by 8%–25%, suggesting
that in-utero exposure to indoor air pollutants may play an important
role.
Next, I investigate several channels related to the health impact of
the program and find that the improvement in indoor air quality is
the most relevant channel. Most exposure measurement studies have
reached a common conclusion that kerosene-using stoves emit more
pollutants compared to LPG-using stoves (see Bryden et al., 2015 for a
review), suggesting that this program, which aimed to replace kerosene
with LPG, can reduce indoor air pollution significantly.7 I also discuss
changes in expenditures, the reliability of the supply, and avoidance
behavior as some of the alternative mechanisms. However, none of
these seem to have played a major role.
The findings from this study have direct policy implications that
are relevant to billions of people who still cook using dirty fuels in
the developing world. Many other countries—such as Peru, India, and
China—have attempted to implement large fuel transition programs
(see Quinn et al., 2018 for a review on several case studies around
the world). Existing studies point out that behavioral aspects, such as
low willingness to pay for clean fuels (Mobarak et al., 2012; Bensch et
al., 2015) and a lack of understanding on the proper use of the clean
technology (Hanna et al., 2016) can hinder household adoption of clean
energy. However, in a real-world setting, I show that these behavioral
aspects can be overcome using proper policy instruments, such as the
one discussed here, and real impacts can be observed.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides
some background on the program; Section 3 describes the data and the
empirical strategy; Section 4 shows the results; Section 5 discusses the
mechanism; Section 6 shows the robustness checks and the heteroge-
neous effects, and Section 7 concludes.
2. Indonesia’s cooking fuel conversion program
A decline in crude oil production and rising demand for domes-
tic fuel consumption had shifted Indonesia from a major oil exporter
to a net oil importer. After oil prices increased in 2006, subsidizing
kerosene had become a major burden to the Indonesian government
(Budya and Arofat, 2011). Hence, in 2007, the government introduced
the Kerosene to LPG Conversion Program with the purpose of reduc-
ing the cost of subsidizing kerosene. The fact that the program was
not aimed at improving health made it a suitable policy experiment to
6 Households in “planned-but-untreated” districts have not yet received the
program by the time of the survey, but they would have received it. Note that
this program is still underway as of this writing.
7
My compilation from existing evidence suggests that average daily expo-
sures to PM2.5 and CO from kerosene stoves are 150–260% and 75–200% higher
than LPG stoves, respectively.
0 Imelda
Fig. 1. Household primary cooking fuel in 1971–2010.
Notes: This figure shows the total population by primary cooking fuel types
from 1971–2010. The share of households that used kerosene was stable prior
to the program. However, kerosene use decreased from 42% to 12%, while
LPG use increased from 8% to 45% between 2005 and 2010, likely due to the
program. Source: Indonesian Census 1971-2010.
investigate its impact on health because it minimizes possible biases
due to selection into the program.
The Indonesian government chose LPG as the fuel to replace
kerosene mainly because of its price and its existing infrastructure (Tho-
day et al., 2018).8 The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the
program coordinator, mainly targeted districts that have a high level
of kerosene use and are near the existing LPG infrastructure. In the
first two years (2007–2008), the program underwent its learning phase
due to limited planning and insufficient experience, leading to a simul-
taneous scarcity in kerosene and LPG. Starting in 2009, the program
experienced a major expansion as it was better managed and no longer
had any major operational issues (Budya and Arofat, 2011). From 2009
to 2011, the program reached out to almost half of the districts in the
country and distributed more than 60% of the total kits planned for
distribution under the five year plan.
The adoption rate was remarkable. Overall, the program reached
approximately two-thirds of all households in Indonesia within a rela-
tively short time. Fig. 1 graphically depicts this transition. In particular,
it plots the total population based on households’ primary cooking fuel
reported in the census in 1971–2010.9 The share of households that
used kerosene was stable prior to the program. However, of the total
population, kerosene use decreased from 42% to 12%, while LPG use
increased from 8% to 45% between 2005 and 2010. Comparing districts
that received the program by 2010 with those that had not, it is clear
that the program was the main driver of the increase in the share of
LPG use (see Fig. A.2 in the Appendix).
The roll-out.—The timing for when the government started to dis-
tribute the free LPG starter kits in each district is central to my identifi-
cation strategy. I focus on the districts that received LPG during the
expansion years (2009–2011). In these years, because of the imple-
mentation constraints coupled with an ambitious target, some districts
8
Kerosene, a petroleum product that has a strong odor similar to gasoline, is
one of the most important household commodities used for cooking and lighting
in Indonesia since the 1960s, while LPG, a mixture of propane and butane,
is known as a cleaner-burning and more efficient fuel compared to kerosene
because of the higher combustion efficiency (Kimemia and Van Niekerk, 2017).
It emits less pollutants relative to kerosene (Smith et al., 1999; Andresen et al.,
2005; Bryden et al., 2015).
9
The data is publicly available (Minnesota Population Center, 1971–2010).
3
Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548
Fig. 2. Districts’ share of kerosene by implementation years.
Notes: This figure plots the proportion of kerosene users in two groups: dis-
tricts that received the program in 2009–2011 (left) and after 2011 (right).
The share of kerosene users before (after) the program is represented by the
dashed line (solid line). Before the program, the proportion of households that
use kerosene is very similar between these groups (Kolmogorov–Smirnov test
p-value of 0.129). Then, after the program, the share of kerosene users changed
only for those on the left. Source: IDHS 2002 and 2012.
received LPG earlier than the others. This gives rise to a plausible exoge-
nous variation in the timing of the implementation. Unsurprisingly, the
groups of households in these districts look very similar in their baseline
observable characteristics (shown in Section 3.3).
During the expansion years, each district had almost the same prob-
ability of receiving LPG. Fig. 2 provides two suggestive pieces of evi-
dence: (1) the shares of kerosene users in districts that received LPG
in 2009–2011 look very similar at baseline (Kolmogorov-Smirnov p-
value of 0.129); (2) by 2012, the share of kerosene users was greatly
reduced in those that had received LPG in 2009–2011 (treated districts)
while there were no changes in the shares of kerosene users within
districts that had not received LPG (planned-but-untreated districts).
Lastly, a kernel density of household wealth index at baseline also sup-
ports the similarity between the two groups on the wealth aspect (see
Fig. A.3 in the Appendix).
The roll-out process includes three main steps. First, it starts with
a distribution of one free LPG starter kit (consisting of one LPG canis-
ter, an LPG stove, a hose, and a regulator) to each eligible household.
A third party surveyor was appointed to conduct a survey, forming a
list of eligible households based on some eligibility criteria (Thoday
et al., 2018). Second, those who received this starter kit are allowed
to refill the LPG canister under the subsidized price (the other LPG
sizes that have been in the market were not eligible to be refilled
under the subsidized price). Third, after the starter kits were distributed
within one district, the government proceeded by reducing the supply
of subsidized kerosene gradually in that district, leaving households
with limited options to continue using kerosene. Indeed, kerosene prices
rose 150–200% during the distribution of the LPG kits in 2007 due to
kerosene scarcity (Budya and Arofat, 2011).10 This gave rise to a very
high adoption rate of LPG.
A unique and important feature of this program is that it combines
a subsidy on LPG price with a quantity restriction on kerosene. In par-
ticular, this program not only offers a free starter kit but also restricts
the supply of the dirty fuel, unlike typical clean cookstove interven-
10
In my analysis, I also find that the price of kerosene increased within this
range following the program roll-out in the subsequent years (see Table A.1
column 4).
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 1
Program intensity by year of implementation.
Year Start year: 2007/2008 Start year: 2009 Start year: 2010 Start year: 2011 Start year:
Intensity Cum. Intensity Cum. Intensity Cum. Intensity Cum. >2011
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
2007 0.03 0.03
(0.06) (0.06)
2008 0.13 0.16
(0.10) (0.10)
2009 0.12 0.28 0.21 0.21
(0.12) (0.05) (0.08) (0.08)
2010 0.00 0.28 0.03 0.24 0.21 0.21
(0.01) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.07) (0.07)
2011 0.00 0.27 0.01 0.25 0.02 0.24 0.23 0.23
(0.00) (0.05) (0.02) (0.06) (0.06) (0.04) (0.05) (0.05)

Number of districts 94 96 34 91 186

Mean of 1164.11 614.50 349.45 252.71 176.43
population (000) (767.06) (437.36) (217.03) (182.49) (130.13)

Notes: The year when districts first received the kits is indicated in the row header. Columns 1, 3, 5, 7 report the number of
free LPG starter kits distributed in district r at year t relative to its total population at t − 1 (the formula is LPG starter kitsr,t ÷
Total populationr,t −1 ), while columns 3, 4, 6, 8 report the cumulative number of the kits distributed up to year t relative to its total
population. Standard deviations are in parentheses. The population mean is per 1000 people.
Source: Author’s calculation based on program data from Pertamina and district annual population count from World Bank (2015).

tions. Hanna et al. (2016) suggest that distributing free “clean” stoves
by itself does not guarantee that households will use their stoves prop-
erly, suggesting that offering the free kit itself may not be sufficient to
promote a sustained use of clean cooking practices.11
3. Data and empirical strategy
3.1. Administrative data on the program implementation
Data on the program implementation comes from Pertamina,
Indonesia’s national oil company appointed as the sole LPG supplier
for the program. I rely on this administrative data on the LPG starter
kits disbursement to construct the treatment variable, which is a binary
variable indicating if district r has any LPG starter kits distributed in
the year t.
On average, the number of LPG kits distributed per district was
about a fourth of the district population. Based on the Indonesian Cen-
sus 2010, the average household size is four people. This means that the
program covered almost all households in a district. This is not surpris-
ing considering that there were not many households using LPG before
the program (less than 10% in 2005, see Fig. 1), hence a large share
of the population is eligible to receive the LPG kits. Plus, most of the
households use multiple cooking fuels. Prior to the program, regardless
of what primary cooking fuel households had reported, their kerosene
consumption was not zero (Imelda, 2018b). Hence, some of the fire-
wood users could also claim that they were eligible to receive the free
kit.
Since I rely on the timing of the program implementation, I
group districts based on the year they first received the starter kits:
2007/2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and after 2011. In Table 1, I report
the average starter kits per capita distributed by each group (columns
1, 3, 5, 7) and its corresponding cumulative number (columns 2, 4,
6, 8).12 Districts which received the program earlier are more densely
populated compared to districts which received the program later, but
the cumulative numbers of program intensity are very similar (around
0.23–0.27). It also suggests that most of the LPG distributions took place
on the first year of program implementation.
It is important to highlight several other concurrent changes or poli-
cies that are suspected to be associated with the program. First, the pro-
gram might lead to an expansion in the LPG infrastructure. However,
to fulfill the rapid growth in demand during 2007–2012, Pertamina
relied on imports to secure the supply, because building new LPG facil-
ities would have been costly and time-consuming. Indeed, there were
only a few new LPG storage facilities and refilling stations built during
2007–2012. Nonetheless, even if the program might have triggered the
growth of other local businesses, in the short term, improvements in
household health are unlikely to be the first-order effect from the local
business growth.
Second, in 2007, the Indonesian government implemented a ran-
domized conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, known as Program
Keluarga Harapan (PKH) (Sparrow et al., 2008). A study on the short-
term program impact (three-year evaluation period) shows that the pro-
gram has no impact on either mortality or on children’s nutritional
status (Alatas, 2011). It increased health care utilization, but not the
quality of health care (Triyana, 2016). However, Cahyadi et al. (2020)
document cumulative health impacts on stunting rate, six years after
the program launched (e.g., the stunting rate fell by 23%). Since PKH
used randomization and geographic targeting, it is unlikely that it is
directly correlated with the timing of the LPG program studied here.
It is still important, however, to control for concurrent programs to
avoid omitted variable bias. For instance, it can arise from the fact that
PKH (or other similar government interventions) might have improved
health outcomes in some districts around the same time.
Lastly, one may be concerned that expectations about the program
may affect participation because districts receive starter kits at different

12 I rely on the district population count compiled by the World Bank team

11
Existing kitchen layout and the cooking behavior required to accommo-
date the new technology may also influence household adoption. Anecdotally,
however, in the context of this study, these are minor factors because kitchen
layout and cooking behavior are not strikingly different between households
using kerosene and households using LPG.
from Statistics Indonesia (World Bank, 2015). I do not use the household count
by district because there were several district re-classifications (for instance,
one district in 2010 was divided into two districts in 2012). As a result, the 2010
census data does not have a complete household count for all districts in 2012.
However, from this census, I can calculate the number of household members
on average, which is used to re-scale the program intensity into household level
in the analysis in Section 5.3.

4
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 2
Summary statistics of baseline birth outcomes.
Full sample Treatment group Control group
Targeted: Targeted: Targeted:
2007–2008 2009–2011 > 2011
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Infant death 0.039 0.025 0.041 0.044
(0.192) (0.157) (0.197) (0.206)
Perinatal death 0.023 0.016 0.024 0.025
(0.149) (0.127) (0.154) (0.157)
Postneonatal death 0.015 0.009 0.017 0.017
(0.122) (0.094) (0.127) (0.130)
Low weight (<2.5 kg) 0.071 0.065 0.067 0.084
(0.258) (0.247) (0.250) (0.277)
Weight: 2.5–3.5 kg 0.669 0.712 0.655 0.651
(0.471) (0.453) (0.475) (0.477)

Observations 27,896 6256 11,899 9741

N households 28,578 6648 12,446 9484
N districts 501 94 221 186

Notes: This table reports the average time-varying birth characteristics at baseline for
each sample indicated on the column header. All variables are dummy variables. For
the birth weight dummies, the number of observations is 20,766 observations due to
missing values. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
Source: IDHS 2002 and 2007.

times. However, the precise timing of the program was not announced
to households; therefore, it is unlikely that systematic planning could
take place.13
3.2. Infant health measures and household characteristics
Data on infants and the corresponding household characteristics
come from three rounds of the Indonesian Demographic and Health
Surveys (IDHS), the main source for Indonesia’s national health statis-
tics, for the years 2002, 2007, and 2012.14 Each survey records a cross-
section of women aged 15–49 and their basic socio-demographic infor-
mation, including all of their birth histories. Pregnancy-related vari-
ables are recorded only for children born within the last five years. In
the main analysis, I focus on the key measures of infant health: infant
mortality and perinatal mortality.
There are potential sources of bias in infant mortality measures,
which can make my estimates serve as a lower bound. First, recall error
exists when respondents forget births that occurred in the distant past
or when they under-report infant deaths because they do not want to
talk about the deaths. This recall error of births may lead to attenuation
bias. However, this problem is less serious for recent births as opposed
to more distant births. Therefore, to minimize this problem, I limit my
analysis to births within five years preceding the survey and I include
dummies for the recall period, following Ngandu et al. (2016). Second,
survival bias can exist when the fertility of surviving and non-surviving
women differ substantially. Third, mothers who suffer from fetal losses
might decide to not become pregnant again. Hence, the children in the
sample are born from mothers who are generally healthier than those
who decided to not become pregnant.
The main analysis is limited to births within five years preceding
the survey in order to be able to use pregnancy-related variables and to
limit the recall bias. I also assume that all infants are born in the same
district as where the mother lived in the survey year. This assumption is
plausible because mobility across districts in Indonesia is very low, less
than 5% from the total population, and it is even lower for households
with children under five years of age (see Fig. A.4 in the Appendix).
Table 2 shows the summary statistics of baseline birth characteristics
of all districts (column 1), those received LPG during 2007–2008 (col-
umn 2), 2009–2011 (column 3), and after 2011 (column 4). The aver-
age infant death in column 4 is the highest among all district groups,
44 infants death per 1000 live births.15 This is not surprising as the
Indonesian government selected the timing of implementation mainly
based on the district’s level of kerosene consumption. Districts with a
higher level of kerosene consumption are more economically developed
compared to those with a lower level of kerosene consumption, and as
a result, those regions are more likely to have a lower infant mortality
rate. If we compare columns 3 and 4, however, the average of infant
deaths is much more similar (41 versus 44 infant deaths per 1000 live
births). Consistent with earlier discussion, it suggests that there was
less targeting involved during the expansion years. This similarity in
the level also holds for the other infant health measures.
Parallel Trends.—Fig. 3 compares infant mortality and perinatal mor-
tality at baseline years in districts that received LPG in 2009–2011
with districts that would receive it after 2011. It plots the interaction
coefficient between the indicator variable if districts were targeted in
2009–2011 and the year of birth for children born before the program.
All regressions include year and district fixed effects. The year 2008 is
the reference category.16 The parallel trends in infant mortality reas-
sure my identification strategy, explained in Section 3.5.
3.3. Control variables
In my most parsimonious model, I use indicators for recall peri-
ods, male children, survey periods, and multiple births as the control
variables. In my most comprehensive model, I include a full set of con-
trol variables which consist of indicators for parent education level (no
education and higher than primary school), mother’s age at birth of
child, mothers younger than 18 years old, birth order (second, third, or
fourth and higher-order), an indicator of whether parents are smokers,

13 Anticipation of the program is discussed further in Section 5.3 under relia-

bility of supply point.
14
IDHS 2007 and 2012 include all provinces, whereas IDHS 2002 excludes
4 regions: Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, Maluku, North Maluku, and Papua due
to the unstable political situations. The data is publicly available (ICF, 2002,
2007, 2012).
15
For comparison, the country’s infant mortality rate published in Indonesia
Bureau Statistic (BPS) in 2002 and 2007 is 35 and 34 infants death per 1000
live births, respectively.
16
The figures using the other outcome variables (e.g., birth weight measures)
look very similar (see Fig. A.6 in the Appendix).

5
0 Imelda
Fig. 3. Pre-trends in infant mortality.
Notes: Each figure plots the difference in (a) infant mortality and (b) perinatal mortality of districts that received LPG in 2009–2011 vs. those that received it after
2011. Specifically, the regressors are program dummy, year of birth for children born before the program, each year of birth interacted with program dummy, year
and district fixed effects on either dummy of infant mortality or perinatal mortality. The year 2008 is the reference category. P-values of the pre-trends (interaction
of the time trends with the dummy program) are reported. Confidence bands are calculated using the 95% confidence intervals. Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012
(excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year).
if households have access to clean water sources for drinking (i.e., it
is equal to 1 if households have access to water from protected wells,
water pipes built inside dwellings, bottled water, or filtered water; oth-
erwise it is 0), if households have private toilets, if households have
access to electricity, if households own a fridge, if households own a
TV, and the number of visits to health facilities in the last 12 months. As
household characteristics are only recorded at the survey year, I assume
that these characteristics do not change within five years preceding the
survey.17
Balancing Checks on Covariates.—Table 3 shows summary statistics of
household characteristics at baseline for each group of districts: living
in districts targeted during 2007–2008 (column 2), 2009–2011 (column
3), and after 2011 (column 4). Columns 1–4 show the level difference in
each characteristic while columns 5–8 show its differential trends. The
results give us some indications of how similar households are in these
groups (both in the level and trends). The similarity in the household
characteristics between groups may suggest that the unobserved factors
influencing the trends in the infant’s health are more likely similar.
Similar to the results on birth characteristics, the level difference in
households’ characteristics in column 4 is much more similar to column
3 than to column 2. For instance, the average probability of households
using LPG in column 4 is closer to column 3 (0.04 vs. 0.09), compared
to column 2 (0.21). Although it is not an explicit assumption needed in
my empirical strategy, this similarity in the level suggests that house-
holds living in districts that were targeted after 2011 were likely to be a
better counterfactual group for those targeted in 2009–2011 than those
targeted in 2007–2008.18 The remaining characteristics suggest that
households living in districts targeted earlier are more educated and
economically advantaged than those living in districts targeted after
2011 (e.g., they are more likely to own a TV, to own a fridge, to have a
private toilet, and to have access to electricity). Health-related variables
such as the total visits to health facilities in the last 12 months and the
17 Nonetheless, with or without controlling for household characteristics, my
estimates are very similar. It suggests that this assumption does not play an
important role in my analysis.
18
It is more reassuring to compare groups that have similarities in level and
not just in trends because it suggests that they are more likely to trend similarly
in the absence of the program.
6
Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548
proportion of households that do not smoke, on average, are similar.19
Second, columns 5–8 point to a similar conclusion. Households
living in districts targeted in 2009–2011 seem to trend similarly to
households living in the districts targeted after 2011, hence they serve
as better comparison groups than those living in districts targeted in
2007–2008. For instance, in column 5, among 22 variables, there are 4
variables that have trend differences that are significant at a 90–95%
confidence level (i.e., the availability of clean drinking water and toi-
lets in the house have positive coefficients, while the ownership of TV
and access to electricity have negative coefficients). However, in col-
umn 7, none of those variables were statistically different. Therefore,
in my main analysis, I use the districts targeted in 2009–2011 as my
treatment group in an attempt to minimize time-varying unobservable
factors that can confound my estimates.
3.4. Time-variant district characteristics
Some districts might have received other Poverty Alleviation Pro-
grams (PAPs) the same year they received the LPG program. As dis-
cussed earlier, not accounting for this may lead to omitted variable bias.
To address this, I use the Indonesian Family Life Survey 2014 to obtain
the list of PAPs with the year each of them started in each district.20 I
then create an indicator if the child was born in the district and year in
which any of these PAPs were started. I added this indicator variable as
a control variable in all regressions.21
There may be other remaining factors that could have changed that
may affect districts in different ways. I aim to account for this by includ-
ing district-specific linear and quadratic trends to account for time-
variant changes in district characteristics. The Indonesia Database for
19
Note that the smoking behavior for men was not available in the 2002
survey, hence I focus on the smoking behavior of the mother. The caveat of
this variable is that it is self-reported based on the time of the survey, so it is
possible that mothers who were not smoking at the time of the survey did so in
the past.
20
The data has 20 PAPs. Some of the PAPs are Jamkesda, Jamkesmas, Jamper-
sal, Raskin, Rice Market operation, Keluarga Harapan, PNPM Mandiri, Disabled
Social Insurance, Elderly Social Insurance, Joint Enterprise Group, Renovation
Program for Home, Children Social Welfare Program, Social Security Card, and
National Health Insurance.
21
Indeed, the coefficient of this dummy variable is negative, indicating that
these PAPs are associated with a decrease in infant mortality.
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 3
Summary statistics of baseline household characteristics.
All Treatment group Control Within-district differences
districts group
(2)–(4) (3)–(4)
Targeted: Targeted: Targeted: Coef. P-value Coef. P-value
2007–2008 2009–2011 > 2011
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Cooking with LPG 0.10 0.21 0.09 0.04 0.011 0.608 0.007 0.639
(0.30) (0.41) (0.29) (0.21)
Cooking with kerosene 0.37 0.49 0.39 0.28 −0.012 0.660 −0.003 0.916
(0.48) (0.50) (0.49) (0.45)
Cooking with wood 0.51 0.29 0.50 0.66 −0.011 0.699 −0.004 0.899
(0.50) (0.46) (0.50) (0.47)
Mother’s age at birth of child 27.59 27.86 27.47 27.57 −0.252 0.403 −0.311 0.289
(6.24) (6.02) (6.20) (6.42)
First birth 0.32 0.38 0.32 0.29 −0.001 0.970 0.009 0.620
(0.47) (0.49) (0.47) (0.45)
Child born in the last 5 years 1.38 1.26 1.37 1.47 −0.001 0.967 −0.021 0.553
(0.57) (0.48) (0.56) (0.62)
Antenatal visits 6.65 8.59 6.27 5.75 −0.067 0.771 −0.143 0.525
(3.64) (3.54) (3.39) (3.51)
Number of household member 5.59 5.49 5.44 5.83 0.001 0.996 −0.049 0.667
(2.20) (2.22) (2.05) (2.34)
Has TV 0.62 0.83 0.62 0.48 −0.054∗ 0.061 −0.030 0.295
(0.49) (0.38) (0.48) (0.50)
Has fridge 0.24 0.37 0.22 0.17 0.011 0.701 0.012 0.618
(0.43) (0.48) (0.42) (0.38)
Has clean water for drinking 0.27 0.41 0.27 0.19 0.094∗∗ 0.031 0.022 0.598
(0.44) (0.49) (0.44) (0.39)
Visited health facility last 12 months 0.48 0.54 0.47 0.46 −0.043 0.308 −0.012 0.781
(0.50) (0.50) (0.50) (0.50)
Not smoking 0.99 0.99 0.99 0.99 −0.001 0.799 0.003 0.540
(0.12) (0.12) (0.11) (0.12)
House without toilet 0.58 0.40 0.59 0.68 0.057∗ 0.075 0.003 0.926
(0.49) (0.49) (0.49) (0.47)
Has electricity 0.82 0.96 0.84 0.71 −0.059∗∗ 0.026 −0.023 0.432
(0.38) (0.19) (0.37) (0.45)
Mother’s age < 19 0.05 0.04 0.05 0.06 −0.006 0.515 0.003 0.748
(0.22) (0.19) (0.22) (0.23)
Mother’s education: less than primary 0.18 0.11 0.18 0.23 −0.026 0.279 −0.037 0.136
(0.39) (0.32) (0.39) (0.42)
Mother’s education: primary 0.51 0.51 0.51 0.52 0.024 0.367 0.022 0.394
(0.50) (0.50) (0.50) (0.50)
Mother’s education: secondary and higher 0.31 0.38 0.31 0.26 0.002 0.935 0.015 0.572
(0.46) (0.49) (0.46) (0.44)
Father’s education: less than primary 0.03 0.01 0.03 0.04 −0.005 0.525 −0.011 0.165
(0.18) (0.11) (0.18) (0.20)
Father’s education: primary 0.38 0.32 0.38 0.41 −0.006 0.816 0.008 0.727
(0.48) (0.47) (0.49) (0.49)
Father’s education: secondary and higher 0.59 0.67 0.58 0.55 0.010 0.704 −0.002 0.925
(0.49) (0.47) (0.49) (0.50)

Observations 27,896 6256 11,899 9741

N households 23,435 5522 10,100 7813
N districts 501 94 221 186

Notes: This table reports the average value of household characteristics at baseline (that vary every five years) for all districts (column 1), targeted
before 2009 (column 2), 2009–2011 (column 3), and >2011 (column 4). Column 5 compares the mean difference between columns 2 and 4, while
column 7 compares the mean difference between columns 3 and 4. Each row in columns 5 and 7 reports the indicator variable coefficient of whether
household is in column 2 or 3 (it is 0 if a household is in column 4) from a separate regression that includes district fixed effects and survey
year dummies on the corresponding dependent variable in each row, with standard errors clustered by district. The p-values for the corresponding
coefficient are reported in columns 6 and 8. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
Source: IDHS 2002 and 2007. ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.

Policy and Economic Research (World Bank, 2015) provides a panel of The most complete variable is the district’s yearly Gross Domestic Prod-
district characteristics that were compiled from different sources, such uct (GDP). Results from Table A.3 in the Appendix report the program
as the Village Potential Statistics (PODES). Unfortunately, the data is effects on districts’ GDP growth, conditional on district and year fixed
sparse and only available for a few years, hence it is not possible to effects, with and without district trends. I find that using district trends
match IDHS with this database without losing many observations.22 does absorb some of the time-varying district differences, so I add a
specification with district trends to ensure the robustness of my esti-
mates.
22
The results are also robust using some of the district characteristics from
PODES 2003, 2008, 2011. However, the preferable specification is without
PODES characteristics. There were several district reclassifications that made
PODES data not complete and hence leading to fewer observations.

7
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

3.5. Empirical estimation Table 4

Program impact on cooking fuel choice.
To empirically estimate the health impact of the program, I use
LPG (1/0) Kerosene (1/0) Firewood (1/0)
two methods: (1) difference-in-differences (DID) specification which (1) (2) (3)
accounts for time-varying unobservables at the district level and (2)
Post 0.062∗∗ ∗ 0.040∗∗ −0.10∗∗∗
mother fixed effects model which accounts for the unobservable com- (0.016) (0.017) (0.017)
ponents within mother. For robustness checks, I also present the results Targeted (2009–2011) X Post 0.36∗∗ ∗ −0.35∗∗∗ −0.016
using Coarsened Exact Matching (Blackwell et al., 2009). (0.023) (0.025) (0.022)
Total Households 28,713 28,713 28,713
DID.—I compare households in districts that received any LPG in
R-squared 0.34 0.24 0.29
2009–2011 to those in districts that were scheduled to receive LPG Control Mean 0.04 0.28 0.66
after 2011.23 The program, as discussed earlier, was not particularly Total districts 407 407 407
aimed to improve health, but to reduce kerosene subsidy cost. Districts
Notes: This table reports 𝜃 coefficient from Equation (1), which is a regres-
were not chosen on the basis of temporal trends in health, thus it is sion of the indicator of cooking fuel in the column header on program
plausible to assume that the timing of the program is not directly corre- dummy, post-program dummy, program dummy interacted with the post-
lated with unobserved predictors of health. Moreover, from the parallel program dummy (the treatment variable), survey year fixed effects and dis-
trends (Fig. 3) and balancing checks (Table 3 columns 5–8), it seems trict fixed effects. Program dummy takes value one (zero) if households liv-
valid to assume that the timing of the implementation is uncorrelated ing in districts that received LPG in 2009–2011 (after 2011). Post-program
to factors that also influence health in districts targeted in 2009–2011, dummy takes value one (zero) for survey year 2012 (2002 and 2007).
conditional on district and year fixed effects. Hence, I use a standard Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009
expansion year). ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.
DID model with fixed effects to estimate the causal effect of the pro-
gram on infant mortality, expressed below:

Pr (yirt = 1) = c + 𝛼r + 𝛽t + 𝜃 Treatmentirt + 𝜀irt
where yirt takes the value of 1 if the infant i in region r at time t is
dead within 1 year and 0 otherwise. 𝛼 is a set of district fixed effects
used to absorb time-invariant district characteristics and 𝛽 is a set of
year of birth fixed effects used to absorb time-invariant heterogeneity
across years. The Treatmentrt captures the exposure to the program; it
is equal to 1 if the birth occurred after any single LPG is distributed
in district r starting at year t and 0 otherwise.24 When estimating the
program impact on household characteristics, the Treatmentrt variable
is the interaction between the post-program dummy (equal to 1 for the
2012 survey; 0 for the 2002 and 2007 surveys) and the program dummy
(equal to 1 for districts targeted in 2009–2011, and 0 for districts tar-
geted after 2011). 𝜃 coefficient captures the intent-to-treat effect (later
called program effect) and 𝜀irt is the error term.
One possible concern is that there remains unobserved location-
specific variables correlated with the program that also influence
health. To account for any changes in the observables pre and post-
program, I include household and birth characteristics as well as their
interaction with a post-program dummy. My most comprehensive spec-
ification takes the following form:
Pr (yirt = 1) = c + 𝛼r + 𝛽t + 𝜃 Treatmentrt + 𝛿rt + 𝛿rt2 + 𝜏0 Xirt
(1) IDHS and add mother fixed effects on equation (1). I assume that all
infants were born in the same district as where the mothers resided in
the survey year and I then use all births, including births earlier than
five years preceding the survey year in this analysis.25 In this specifica-
tion, I control for the month and year fixed effects, an indicator for a
male child, and multiple births. I also control for birth parity, maternal
education (primary, secondary education and higher), paternal educa-
tion (primary, secondary education and higher, missing), the mother’s
age at birth of child, and the interactions of each of them with the
post-program dummy.
4. Results
First, to have a sense of the fuel adoption rate induced by the pro-
gram, I document the program impact on fuel choice. Then, I present
the DID estimates and within-mother estimates of the program impacts
on several measures of infant health. Lastly, I discuss the potential lead-
ing mechanism through which the program could have an impact on
health.
4.1. The program impact on fuel choice

+𝜏1 Xirt xPostt + 𝜀irt
where 𝛿 rt and 𝛿rt2 are district-specific linear and quadratic time trends,
respectively. Xirt is a set of covariates that includes indicators for
recall periods, male children, survey periods, and multiple births, while
Xirt xPostt is each of these variables interacted with the post dummy. In
addition to those variables, I also add parental and household charac-
teristics in the most comprehensive model (listed in Section 3.3), and
its interaction with the post dummy.
Within-Mother Estimates.—One may be concerned that the unob-
served fixed characteristics of the mother, such as health awareness,
could confound the DID estimates. I probe the robustness of the DID
estimates using mother fixed effects to include comparisons of siblings
from the same mother who were exposed to the program with those
who were not. I use the birth registration of the mothers in the 2012
23 Indeed, comparing outcomes for a group whose treatment turns on earlier to
(2) To document the first stage, the program impact on household fuel
choice, I regress the program dummy, post-program dummy, program
dummy interacted with the post-program dummy, survey year and
district fixed effects, on the indicator variable of fuel choice (follow-
ing Equation (1)). The results are presented in Table 4 and the pro-
gram impact on household fuel choice is captured by the interaction
term coefficients. The magnitude in the interaction term coefficients in
columns 1–2 suggests that households in the targeted districts were no
longer using kerosene and presumably had switched to using LPG (see
also Fig. A.5 in the Appendix that supports this one-to-one relationship
between LPG and kerosene).
The results show that the program increased the number of house-
holds relying primarily on LPG by about 900% and decreased the num-
ber of households relying primarily on kerosene by about 146%. Indeed,
the quantity restriction on the subsidized kerosene limits household
ability to continue using it after the program. On the other hand, there
is no program impact on the probability of using firewood, as expected,

outcomes for a group whose treatment turns on later in the future is considered
as a good comparison (Goodman-Bacon, 2018).
24
As the precise month of the program implementation is unknown, I choose
25
the middle of the year (i.e., July) as the cut-off month to account for any oper- One caveat is that these results may suffer from recall bias but this should
ational lag. I discuss the sensitivity of this cut-off in Section 4.2. be minimized by the use of birth parity as the control variable.

8
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 5
DID result: The program impact on infant mortality.
Infant mortality
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Program exposure (1/0) −0.019∗∗∗ −0.017∗∗∗ −0.011∗∗ ∗ −0.011∗∗ −0.011∗∗∗ −0.012∗
(0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.006)

Observations 34,926 34,926 34,926 34,926 34,926 34,926

R-squared 0.002 0.035 0.052 0.056 0.056 0.080

Control Mean 0.044

Year FE Y Y Y Y Y Y
Birth Characteristics X Y Y Y Y Y
District FE X X Y Y Y Y
Full control X X X Y Y Y
Full control X Post X X X X Y Y
District Trends X X X X X Y
Total Households 28,713 28,713 28,713 28,713 28,713 28,713
Notes: The dependent variable is infant mortality which takes value 1 if the infant is dead and 0 otherwise. In a cumulative
fashion, column 1 uses year fixed effects, column 2 adds time-varying birth characteristics, column 3 adds district fixed
effects, column 4 adds full control variables discussed in Section 3.3, column 5 adds all interactions between the control
variables and the post-program dummy, and column 6 district-specific linear and quadratic trends. Standard errors (in
parentheses) are clustered by district. The complete list of coefficients is not reported to conserve space.
Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year). ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.

because households that use firewood neither were targeted by the pro-
gram nor had any incentives to forgo the use of firewood and fully
switch to LPG.26
One may be concerned that the program impact on the fuel choice
presented above may be driven by the unobserved characteristics of
the households. To support the results above, I redo the same regres-
sion on a longitudinal dataset, the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS)
for the years 2000, 2007, and 2014.27 The results yield the same con-
clusion. The program is still the main driver of household switching
to LPG even after controlling for unobserved time-invariant household
characteristics. Specifically, the results suggest that households living
in districts targeted in 2009–2013 are about 350% more likely to use
LPG primarily and 75% less likely to use kerosene primarily than those
living in districts targeted after 2013 (Table A.1 columns 1–2 in the
Appendix). In addition, I also investigate the program impact on house-
hold kerosene purchases. The results suggest two things: the program
led to households ceasing their kerosene purchases (Table A.1 column
3 in the Appendix) and led to about 240% increase in the price of
kerosene in LPG receiving districts (column 4). As mentioned earlier,
kerosene price is subsidized for household use, hence a possible reason
why kerosene price increased is that there was a scarcity of kerosene
in districts receiving LPG. In sum, this panel evidence supports earlier
finding that households in the LPG receiving districts were no longer
using kerosene after the program mainly due to kerosene scarcity.
4.2. DID estimates: the program impact on infant mortality
I present the DID results in Table 5 using Equations (1) and (2).
Specifically, column 1 uses year fixed effects, column 2 adds dis-
trict fixed effects, column 3 adds household and individual charac-
teristics, column 4 adds district-specific linear trends, column 5 adds
district-specific quadratic trends, and column 6 adds all interactions
between the control variables and the post-program dummy, cumula-
tively. Standard errors are clustered by district to allow within district
correlations.28
The negative coefficients in all of the specifications indicate that the
program is negatively associated with infant mortality. The magnitude
of these coefficients is also stable across specifications, even when I add
a full set of control variables and district trends. The inclusion of a full
set of controls (columns 4–5) gives similar estimates as only including
year and district fixed effects (column 3), suggesting that the program
effects cannot be explained by the observables.29 Column 5, the most
conservative estimate, shows that the program decreased infant mortal-
ity rate by about 25% (standard error of 9%), a sizable decline. Column
6 suggests that the estimates are similar even after controlling for dis-
trict trends, although the standard error is larger. The coefficients on
the other household characteristics are consistent with the literature.
For instance, a more educated parent is associated with a lower infant
mortality rate and younger mother is associated with a higher infant
mortality rate.
The event study plot provides a graphical analysis of the policy
effect on infant mortality (Fig. 4). Each coefficient represents the con-
ditional mean difference between district targeted in 2009–2011 and
district targeted after 2011 by years since program implementation.30
It complements the earlier results in two ways. First, the coefficients
of the program exposure before the implementation year are all zero
(the p-value of joint significance of all the pre-trend coefficients is
0.215), reassuring the parallel pre-trend shown earlier (Fig. 3). Second,
the similarity in the magnitude of program impact by the duration of
program exposure, suggesting similar treatment effects over time. This
may be due to the short post-program period (only up to three years),
or the nature of the outcome variables, giving a limited window for the
“accumulations” to take place (i.e., the exposure can only be accumu-
lated within nine months as a fetus and up to one year as an infant).
An alternative channel of accumulation could have been through the
mother’s health. However, the event study plot suggests that there is no
accumulation of health through the mother.
Timing of the Exposures.—Depending on the assumption of the month
of program implementation (later called the cut-off month), I can esti-
mate in-utero exposures on children born around the cut-off. If the pro-
gram impacts are larger for the children born after the cut-off, it may

26
They usually obtain their firewood for free or with little cost. These house-
holds, however, are likely to reduce their kerosene consumption as well, but
they are unlikely to rely primarily on LPG after the program.
27
The data is publicly available in https://www.rand.org/well-being/social-
and-behavioral-policy/data/FLS (Strauss et al., 2004, 2009, 2016).
28
Sampling weights provided in the survey are not used in all regressions
since I focus on estimating the relationships at the individual level.
29
Column 3 replicates the results from Imelda (2018a).
30
The plots using the other outcomes variables can be seen in the Appendix.

9
0 Imelda
Fig. 5. Program Impacts Based on Cut-off Month.
Notes: This figure plots the program exposure coefficient 𝜃 in Equation 1 by child’s month of birth on (a) infant mortality and (b) perinatal mortality, together with
its 95% confidence intervals (vertical lines). All regressions include year and district fixed effects and birth characteristics. The larger effects on the later births
indicate that there are some cumulative effect of the exposure occurred during fetal development. Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the
2009 expansion year).
indicate some accumulated in-utero exposure. Hence, I redo the regres-
sion in Equation (2) by assuming different cut-off month (i.e., April to
August).31
Fig. 5 plots the program effects on infant mortality and perinatal
mortality around the cut-off month. These figures show that, before
June, the program had no significant impact on infants. But after June
and July, the program impact on mortality became larger and statisti-
cally significant. These decreasing program impacts support the argu-
ment that there exists some accumulated in-utero exposure in which
will be investigated further in the next section.32
In-utero Exposures.— It has been well-documented that the emission
level from using an LPG stove is lower than using a kerosene stove
because LPG has a higher level of combustion efficiency. PM2.5 and
CO are some of the byproducts of incomplete combustion from cooking
fuels that are associated with an increased risk of stillbirth if pregnant
women were exposed during the third trimester. Maternal exposures to
31
Months prior to April are excluded to account for operational lags, while
months after August are excluded as a single LPG is likely already distributed
and thus miscategorizing this as an untreated period can underestimate the
program impact.
32
One caveat is that there are more households using LPG in the later months.
Nonetheless, within this range of months, households are more likely to have
similar access to LPG compared to earlier months or later months.
10
Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548
Fig. 4. Event study plot–Program impact on infant mortality.
Notes: Each coefficient represents the mean difference of infant mortality
between districts targeted in 2009–2011 and districts targeted after 2011 by
years since program implementation with the same specification as in Table 5
column 3. The control group is always districts targeted after 2011. In the
x-axis, 0 represents births occurred in districts with program exposures less
than a year. Births occurred two years after the program have the least obser-
vations compared to the other years, which may explain the larger standard
errors. Births which occurred three years after the program implementation
are excluded due to few observations. The p-values from F-test of joint signif-
icance for pre and post period are reported in the figure. Confidence bands
are calculated using the 95% confidence intervals. Source: IDHS 2002, 2007,
2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year).
PM2.5 may lead to inflammation in the placenta, while maternal expo-
sures to CO may impair placental oxygen transfer (Wylie et al., 2016).
If exposure to emissions has been accumulated during fetal develop-
ment, then it is expected that the program effects will also affect other
birth outcomes such as birth weight, a widely used indicator of neona-
tal health. Especially exposure to emissions during the last trimester of
pregnancy has often been associated with the risk of stillbirth (Yang et
al., 2018) and low birth weight (Currie et al., 2009). Hence, I investi-
gate whether the program is also affecting the perinatal mortality and
the prevalence of low birth weight.
Table 6 summarizes the results on perinatal mortality—stillbirths
and deaths in the first week of life (column 1), postneonatal
mortality—deaths within the first month after birth through the end of
the first year of life (column 2), low birth weight—birth weight below
2.5 kg (column 3), and birth weight between 2.5 and 3.5 kg (column
4). All regressions use the richest specification, which includes year and
district fixed effects, full control variables discussed in Section 3.3 and
all the interactions between the control variables and the post-program
dummy.
Column 1 indicates that reduction in infant mortality mostly hap-
pens during the perinatal period, accounting for about half of the reduc-
tion in the infant mortality rate. The program is associated with lower
postneonatal mortality, although not statistically significant. This is
consistent with anecdotal evidence that newborns are more likely to
be inside the home and be more exposed to indoor pollutants than
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 6
DID results: The program impact on other infant health measures.
Perinatal Postneonatal Low Weight:
Mortality Mortality Weight 2.5–3.5 kg
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Program Exposure (1/0) −0.007∗ −0.003 −0.014∗∗ 0.021∗
(0.004) (0.002) (0.007) (0.013)

Observations 34,926 34,926 25,810 25,810

R-squared 0.04 0.03 0.09 0.05
Control Mean 0.025 0.017 0.083 0.651
Full control X Post Y Y Y Y
Total households 28,713 28,713 22,116 22,116

Notes: Each column is a separate regression of program dummy on the corresponding

outcome variable in the column header. All regressions include year and district fixed
effects, full control variables discussed in Section 3.3 and all the interactions between
the control variables and the post-program dummy. The results with or without the full
control variables look very similar. I only show the results with full control variables to
conserve space. Standard errors (in parentheses) are clustered by district.
Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year).
∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.

Table 7
Mother fixed effects results.
Infant Perinatal Postneonatal Low Weight:
Mortality Mortality Mortality Weight 2.5–3.5 kg
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Program Exposure (1/0) −0.018∗ −0.007 −0.008 0.009 −0.000
(0.010) (0.007) (0.006) (0.038) (0.079)

Observations 25,304 25,304 25,304 7043 7043

R-squared 0.43 0.53 0.39 0.87 0.86
Control Mean 0.068 0.038 0.024 0.078 0.620
Mother FE Y Y Y Y Y
Total Mothers 10,124 10,124 10,124 5585 5585

Notes: Each row and column is a separate regression that includes mother, district, and year fixed effects,
a dummy for male child, dummies for multiple births. It also includes birth parity, dummies for mother
and father education (below primary, primary, secondary school) and each of those interacted with post-
program. The column header indicates the outcome variables used in each regression. Standard errors (in
parentheses) are clustered by district.
Source: IDHS 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year). ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p <
0.1.

older infants. Column 4 shows that the program decreases (increases)
the probability of low birth weight (birth weight within 2.5–3.5 kg). A
caveat for birth weight results is that it is recorded based on either a
written record or the mother’s recall, and it is less likely to be known
for many babies born at home. Hence, the sample size is smaller com-
pared to the mortality results due to missing values. In an unreported
result, the program was found to have no effect in the gestation period,
which means that the lower prevalence of low birth weight babies can-
not be explained by the changes in the gestation period. Overall, both
the results in the perinatal mortality and birth weight highlight that bio-
logical mechanisms through fetal exposure are important channels.33
4.3. Alternative model: within-mother estimate
Table 7 shows the program impact on infant health measures using
mother fixed effects. As expected, there are not many births within
one mother, leading to larger standard errors on most of the health
measures. However, the magnitude of the program impacts is essen-
tially the same as earlier DID results and the estimate on infant mortal-
ity remains statistically significant at 10% significance level. As birth
weight is only recorded for the last five years preceding the survey, the
program impacts on birth weight measures are noisier due to small sam-
ple size. The overall results suggest that the program impacts in the DID
estimates cannot be explained by the unobservable fixed characteristics
of mothers.
5. Mechanism
There are several channels where the program could impact infant
mortality. The most salient is through a program induced improvement
in indoor air quality. To get the sense of the magnitude underlying the
relationship between the program, cooking fuel types, indoor air pollu-
tion, and health, I compiled evidence from existing exposure studies. I
estimate the average PM2.5 and CO concentrations from LPG-stoves rel-
ative to kerosene-stoves. Lastly, I discuss other possible channels such
as changes in expenditure, avoidance behavior, cooking time, and reli-
ability of the fuel supply that may explain the improvement in health.
However, none of these seem to play a major role.

33
While child morbidity (i.e., diarrhea, fever, cough, and acute respiratory
5.1. Reduction in pollution exposures
infection symptoms) is another potential outcome to investigate, the sample size
is even smaller due to missing values, leading to noisy estimates. It is possible The program successfully led to a large share of households switch-
that these outcome variables only capture temporary symptoms in the last two ing to LPG, supported by the results in Section 4.1 and by the fact that
weeks which can be driven by many other factors (e.g., weather). there were no significant changes in the other household observable

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Table 8
Correlation between the observables and the program timing.
Outcome Variable: Post Targeted (2009–2011) X Post
Coef. SE Coef. SE
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Mother’s age at birth of child 0.424∗∗ ∗ (0.155) 0.052 (0.197)
First birth 0.020∗∗ (0.010) 0.013 (0.013)
Child born in the last 5 years −0.067∗∗∗ (0.017) 0.004 (0.021)
Antenatal visits 0.706∗∗ ∗ (0.147) 0.174 (0.179)
Number of household member 0.052 (0.080) −0.114 (0.091)
Has TV 0.211∗∗ ∗ (0.016) −0.010 (0.021)
Has fridge 0.188∗∗ ∗ (0.017) 0.020 (0.022)
Has clean water for drinking 0.190∗∗ ∗ (0.022) 0.010 (0.028)
Visited health facility last 12 months 0.096∗∗ ∗ (0.021) −0.004 (0.026)
Not smoking −0.021∗∗∗ (0.006) 0.012∗ (0.007)
House without toilet −0.137∗∗∗ (0.019) −0.017 (0.025)
Has electricity 0.124∗∗ ∗ (0.017) −0.028 (0.021)
Mother’s age < 19 −0.007 (0.005) 0.003 (0.006)
Mother’s education: less than primary −0.050∗∗∗ (0.013) −0.010 (0.016)
Mother’s education: primary −0.040∗∗∗ (0.015) 0.003 (0.019)
Mother’s education: secondary and higher 0.090∗∗ ∗ (0.015) 0.007 (0.019)
Father’s education: less than primary −0.011∗∗ (0.006) −0.004 (0.006)
Father’s education: primary −0.049∗∗∗ (0.014) −0.015 (0.017)
Father’s education: secondary and higher 0.061∗∗ ∗ (0.014) 0.020 (0.018)

Notes: Each row is a separate regression that includes program dummy, post-program dummy,
program dummy interacted with the post-program dummy, survey year and district fixed effects,
on the corresponding dependent variable in the row header. Only two coefficients of interest are
reported: column 1 reports the coefficient of post dummy program and column 2 reports the
coefficient of the interaction term between dummy targeted districts and post dummy program.
Columns 2 and 4 report its corresponding standard errors. Each regression has 34,926 observa-
tions (it is 29,026 when using antenatal visits as the outcome variable because it is recorded only
for the latest births). Standard errors (in parentheses) are clustered by district.
Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year). ∗∗∗ p <
0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.

characteristics due to the program. The latter can be seen in Table 8
column 3, which suggests that the program timing is uncorrelated with
any changes in other observables. Although there is about a 1.2 per-
centage point increase in the proportion of mothers who do not smoke,
the magnitude is relatively very small and only statistically significant
at 90% level.
Almost all exposure studies that compare emissions from kerosene
and LPG stoves support that kerosene-using stoves pollute more than
LPG stoves. Unfortunately, there is no credible indoor air quality mea-
surement that covers a whole country to test the program impact on
indoor air pollution. Nonetheless, I compile evidence from exposure
studies that investigate the relative emission of kerosene-using stoves
and LPG-using stoves (see the Appendix for a more detailed discussion
on how these studies were compiled).34 Table 9 shows the results with
three different specifications (without year and article fixed effects,
with year fixed effects, with article fixed effects). The preferable model
is in columns 3 and 6, suggesting that switching from kerosene to LPG
is associated with a reduction of 149 μgm−3 in PM2.5 and 22 ppm in
CO. It is also clear that biomass-stoves are the dirtiest among all other
fuels.
Program Impact on the Intensive Margin.—If the health improvements
were enjoyed mostly by those receiving the LPG kits, we should expect
similar or larger program impacts on health among households with a
higher probability of receiving the kits. To capture this, I use per-capita
free kits distributed within a district during the first year to measure
program impacts along the intensive margins. Note that the per-capita
free kits distributed during the first year do not reflect pre-existing
LPG consumption because it is predetermined by the local government
(based on how many eligible households are entitled to receive the kit
at baseline). I redo the regression in Equation (2) and use the rescaled
program intensity35 one year before the childbirth year as the treatment
variable.
Table 10 shows a very similar effect size on infant mortality (column
1) compared to the result using program dummy, while the effect size
on perinatal mortality (column 2) is larger. For the other outcome vari-
ables, the magnitude of the point estimates is also similar to previous
results, although the standard errors are larger. This may suggest that a
big part of the program impact comes from the changes in the level of
indoor air pollution experienced by households that are more likely to
receive the kits.36
5.2. Expenditure channel
The reduction in infant mortality can be driven by a program-
induced health investment. One possible driver for changes in health
investment is the changes in fuel expenditure. It is well known that
LPG burns more efficiently than kerosene (e.g., every 0.4 kg of LPG can
replace roughly 1 L of kerosene Budya and Arofat, 2011). In Indonesia,
kerosene price are subsidized for household use. Under the subsidized
price and in the absence of kerosene scarcity, the unit price for kerosene

34
I do Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regressions, Pollutantfst = c + 𝛼 s + 𝛽 t +
𝛾 1 biomassfst + 𝛾 2 kerosenefst + 𝜀fst , where Pollutantfst is the average PM2.5 or CO 35 It is rescaled to household level because the starter kits are given out at the

concentrations over a period of 8–24 h from using fuel f in article s published at
year t, 𝛼 s and 𝛽 t are the article and publication year fixed effects to control for
unobserved differences across article and time. Biomassfst and kerosenefst are
dummy variables indicating the fuel type, and LPG is the reference category.
The error terms are clustered by article.
household level. Specifically, the intensity number in Table 1 is multiplied by
the average household size calculated from the Indonesian Census 2010 (i.e.,
four people).
36
Event study plots using the intensity measures as the treatment variable are
provided in Fig. A.8 in the Appendix.

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0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 9
Mean exposure of PM2.5 and CO by cooking fuels.
Cooking with: PM2.5 (in μgm−3 ) CO (in ppm)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Biomass 283.34 280.10 295.47 12.0 15.7 23.8
(53.93) (80.94) (92.49) (6.9) (12.3) (17.1)
Kerosene 53.19 120.13 149.54 27.4 24.3 22.4
(18.06) (43.61) (47.25) (20.0) (12.2) (16.8)

Observations 197 197 197 110 110 110

R-squared 0.11 0.34 0.59 0.0 0.7 0.7
Year FE X Y X X Y X
Article FE X X Y X X Y
Total Article 39 39 39 22 22 22
Mean LPG: 62.95 7.50

Notes: Each column is a separate regression that reports the relative difference of average PM2.5 (columns 1–3) or
CO (columns 4–6) concentration from using biomass and kerosene relative to LPG. PM2.5 and CO concentrations
over a period of 8–24 h are used as proxies for indoor pollutants as those are the most common measures in
the literature. Columns 1 and 4 do not include any fixed effects, columns 2 and 5 include year fixed effects, and
columns 3 and 6 include article fixed effects. The average PM2.5 and CO concentrations for LPG are reported on
the last row. The scatter plot is available in the Appendix.
Source: Author compilation (see the Appendix for more information).

Table 10
DID results: The program impacts on the intensive margin.
Infant Perinatal Postneonatal Low Weight Weight:
Mortality Mortality Mortality 2.5–3.5 kg
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Program Intensity −0.012∗∗ −0.012∗∗ −0.004 −0.015 0.016
(0.005) (0.005) (0.003) (0.009) (0.018)

Observations 34,538 34,538 34,538 25,504 25,504

R-squared 0.06 0.04 0.03 0.09 0.05
Control Mean 0.044 0.025 0.017 0.083 0.650
Full control X Post Y Y Y Y Y
Total households 28,713 28,713 28,713 28,713 28,713

Notes: This table reports the 𝜃 coefficient from Equation (2), where the treatment variable is the
rescaled program intensity one year before the childbirth year. Specifically, the rescaled intensity
measures are those in Table 1 multiplied by the average household size (i.e., four people). The control
variables are year and district fixed effects, full control variables discussed in Section 3.3 and all the
interactions between the control variables and the post-program dummy. District trend variables
are not included because they absorb the variations from the intensity measure. The number of
observations is slightly less than in the analysis using the program dummy because there are missing
values in the total population for some districts. Standard errors (in parentheses) are clustered by
district.
Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year). ∗∗∗ p < 0.01,
∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.

and LPG (the one that is subsidized under this program) are quite sim-
ilar based on an equivalent measure (Andadari et al., 2014). Because
there is almost no price difference, what is left is the “quantity effect”.
LPG burns more efficiently than kerosene; all else being equal, house-
holds should have consumed a smaller quantity of cooking fuel after
switching to LPG.
The results in Table 11 support that the program led to a significant
decrease in household cooking fuel expenditure, about 2.7 USD less per
month which may be driven by the quantity effect. The estimate sug-
gests that households living in the targeted districts experienced around
2% reduction in their monthly expenditure given that their monthly
expenditure is around 130 USD on average. Indeed, this is consistent
with the existing evidence documented in Budya and Arofat (2011);
Imelda (2018b). These “extra savings” can be spent on health-related
investments (e.g., on healthy food), but also can be spent on non-
healthy investments as well (e.g., buying more cigarettes). Nonethe-
less, these reductions are unlikely to be the main driver of such big
health improvements in such a short time frame. Even the conditional
cash transfer in Indonesia, amounting up to 20% total consumption of
the poor households, did not lead to any significant reduction in infant
mortality within the three-year period of their project (Alatas, 2011).
Therefore, the expenditure channel is unlikely to be the dominating
channel in which the program could affect infant mortality.
5.3. Other channels
Fuel-Stacking Behavior—Table A.2 in the Appendix sheds light on the
use of multiple cooking fuels (fuel-stacking) and the associated switch-
ing behavior. It suggests that about 53% of the switchers are those
who use kerosene primarily at the baseline (standard error of 13%)
and about 31% of the switchers are those who use biomass primarily
at the baseline (standard error of 6%). Hence, more than half of the
effects come from households that use kerosene primarily. Note that,
both households use kerosene, but those who use biomass primarily use
less kerosene (one-third compared to those who use kerosene primar-
ily). Therefore, some of the effects can come from households that use
firewood primarily when the amount of firewood to replace kerosene
is limited. As discussed earlier, the program worked through limiting
the kerosene quantity and it is unlikely to affect the availability of fire-
wood directly. Households have the choice to keep using firewood even

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Table 11
Panel evidence: Program impact on household expenditure.
Cooking Fuel Electricity Water Telephone
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Targeted X Post −2.72∗∗∗ −0.40 −0.62 −1.13
(0.86) (0.77) (0.71) (0.71)

Observations 7426 7862 5163 7552

R-squared 0.68 0.77 0.79 0.73
Control Mean 3.15 3.81 0.66 3.82
Household FE Y Y Y Y
Total households 9103 9103 9103 9103

Notes: This table reports 𝜃 coefficient from Equation (1), where the treatment vari-
able is the interaction of dummy variable if households living in districts targeted
during 2009–2013 and the post-program dummy (equal to 1 for the 2014 survey
and 0 for 2007). The control variables include survey year, district, and house-
hold fixed effects. The outcome variables (in USD) are: cooking fuel expenditure
(column 1), electricity expenditure (column 2), water expenditure (column 3), tele-
phone expenditure (column 4). The number of observations in each column is dif-
ferent due to missing values. The mean of the control group is in USD. 1 USD =
14,000 IDR.
Source: IFLS 2007 and 2014 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion
year). IFLS 2000 did not record these expenditures. ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p <
0.1.

though they might have received the LPG starter kits. Indeed, Fig. A.2
suggests that this is the case—by 2010, in the treated districts, a big
share of households still reported using biomass primarily.
Behavioral Changes.—There are two main behavioral changes that
may be correlated with the program: avoidance behavior and time spent
on cooking. First, I see no compelling reason to believe that avoidance
behavior plays an important role in explaining the program impacts.
In the developing world, families that use traditional cookstoves are
often unaware that the smoke produced by the stoves poses serious
health risks (World Bank, 2013, 2014). Individuals also have limited
options to minimize the indoor air pollutant exposure.37 Moreover,
smoke from kerosene stoves is less visible, and switching from kerosene
to LPG likely does not result in noticeable differences in indoor smoke,
so avoidance behavior is likely small.38
Second, the average time spent on cooking using kerosene and LPG
can be different. LPG burns more efficiently, leading to less time spent
on cooking. However, shorter duration of cooking is associated with
lower pollution exposure, thereby supporting the reduction in pollution
exposures is the main channel. Another possibility is that using LPG also
saves time for fuel refilling, cleaning up the stove or cleaning up the
kitchen. This gives households options to use these extra hours towards
leisure or towards home production. After finding a health improve-
ment among adults (primarily among women) due to this program,
Imelda and Verma (2019) also find that the program led to an increase
in individuals working hours. This can be due to women being health-
ier or higher productivity due to the time saved, or both. Nonethe-
less, in the short term, the large decrease in the infant mortality rate
through these channels is unlikely to be the first-order effect because
the extra time saving does not guarantee that household members will
use it directly towards activities that improve infant’s health.
Reliability of supply. Reliability issues in the supply of LPG or
kerosene may occur during the first year of the distribution process.
37
To avoid outdoor air pollution, one can decide not to be outside. However,
to avoid indoor air pollution, one can only either invest in an air purifier or
increase ventilation. The first option is often constrained by household budget,
while the second option does not necessarily improve indoor air quality (e.g.,
outdoor pollution can easily penetrate indoors).
38
In contrast, when meal preparation activity is more convenient, households
actually cook more often (Saksena et al., 2003). Consequently, households that
had transitioned to LPG may cook more often and be more exposed to indoor
pollution.
However, excluding infants born in the first year of the program imple-
mentation does not change my point estimates (shown in the robustness
checks). There are several possible hypothetical scenarios, but none of
those can explain the large reduction in infant mortality. First, the unre-
liable supply of LPG in the targeted districts may lead to households
shifting to firewood. Since firewood is more polluting than kerosene,
this should work against finding any reduction in the infant mortality
rate. Similarly, if some kerosene is smuggled from the not-yet-treated
districts to the treated districts through black markets and households
use that black market kerosene, this should also work against finding
any reduction in the mortality.
Second, some households in the districts targeted in 2009–2011
might have expected a shortage in kerosene supply and stocked up on
kerosene. However, storing kerosene in large amounts is likely diffi-
cult due to limited space and safety problems (e.g., strong odor and
flammability). More importantly, the supply of subsidized kerosene is
regulated based on a quota system, thus, how much kerosene available
within a district is limited. Although stocking up on kerosene may still
occur, the stock would not last more than a couple of months. Lastly,
local governments may manipulate the demand of the free starter kits
and sell them on the black market. As discussed earlier, the number of
starter kits distributed within a district was determined by a third party
surveyor. Therefore, manipulation is likely to be minimized.
5.4. Discussion on the magnitude of the program impacts
The results of my analysis suggest that, of 16,509 households in
the districts targeted in 2009–2011, 5778 households no longer relied
primarily on kerosene, and presumably had switched to LPG. Within
these households, there were 19,571 live births. My estimates imply
that, at 95% confidence level, given the standard error of 78, at least
137 infant deaths were averted.39 The impacts may seem large but not
implausible. The reasons are as follows.
Foremost, the scale of the program may account for the effect sizes.
The program covered almost all households in the targeted districts. In
39
On average, in this sample, 215 infant deaths, 137 (standard error of 78)
perinatal deaths and 274 (standard error of 137) low birth weight births were
averted due to the program. Note that many of these births are likely to be
overlapped since most perinatal deaths are also low birth weight and some of
the perinatal deaths are included in the infant death incidents.

14
0 Imelda
Table 12
Robustness checks.
CEM 1st Year Clustering
Excluded
(1) (2) (3)
Program exposure (1/0) −0.012∗∗ −0.012∗∗ −0.011∗∗
(0.005) (0.005) (0.004)
Placebo program
Observations 24,700 33,309 34,926
R-squared 0.038 0.057 0.056
Notes: The outcome variable is infant mortality. Column 1 uses Coarsened Exact Matching, column 2 excludes births within the first year
of the program implementation, column 3 uses standard errors that are clustered by household, column 4 uses baseline district kerosene
level as an additional control variable, column 5 uses district poor count as an additional control variable, column 6 uses month and year
of birth as an additional control variable, and column 7 uses placebo program.
Source: IFLS 2000, 2007, 2014 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year). ∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.
particular, households in the LPG receiving districts were no longer
using kerosene after the program and had switched to LPG due to
kerosene scarcity in their districts. As a result, the number of house-
holds that relied primarily on LPG had risen about 350%–900% due
to the program (discussed in Section 4.1). It was indeed a very large
program effect on clean fuel adoption, and possibly one of only a
small number of successful large-scale fuel transitions in the developing
world.
Furthermore, most of the existing studies on indoor air pollution
suggest that the health impact from indoor air pollution is likely much
larger than the impact of outdoor air pollution due to its proximity to
the pollutant coupled with longer exposure.40 This paper’s findings on
infant mortality are within the range of existing experimental evidence
on indoor air pollution and health. For instance, Alexander et al. (2018),
who conducted an experiment among 324 pregnant women, found that
replacing kerosene with ethanol leads to a roughly 50% lower perinatal
mortality and an increase in birth weight around 90 g. Other experi-
mental evidence suggests that switching to cleaner stoves can lead to
a significant decrease (about 40–60%) in respiratory symptoms in both
adults and children within a few months after the intervention (Lud-
winski et al., 2011; Dohoo et al., 2012; Barron and Torero, 2017).41
Lastly, a growing body of literature shows that cooking with
kerosene can be as damaging as cooking with firewood when common
cooking practices are taken into account (Lam et al., 2012). The smoke
from cooking with firewood can lead to extreme discomfort while cook-
ing; as a result, households cook outside in most cases to be able to
breathe more easily while cooking. By contrast, since cooking with
kerosene does not produce as much smoke as cooking with firewood,
households using kerosene often cook inside and closer to the stove
(Saksena et al., 2003). This likely increases the level and the duration
of the exposure to the indoor air pollutants from cooking with kerosene.
My compilation of studies shows that switching from kerosene to LPG
is correlated with a reduction of 149 μgm−3 in PM2.5 and 22 ppm in
CO, a very significant indoor air quality improvement outside the range
of most air pollution studies in developed countries (e.g., during the
1990s, the average emissions in California was around 39 μgm−3 for
PM10 and was around 1.9 ppm for CO (Currie and Neidell, 2005)). Thus,
considering households using kerosene are more likely to cook inside,
the program-induced switch to LPG can dramatically lower household
daily exposure to indoor air pollutants.
40
Hence, it is obvious that this paper’s findings on infant health and mortality
seem large if compared to existing evidence on outdoor air pollution due to the
difference in the nature of pollution exposure.
41
Note that there is some variability in the health outcomes measured, the
type, and the scale of intervention across these experimental studies.
15
Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548
Baseline District Poor Month-year FE Placebo
Kerosene Count
(4) (5) (6) (7)
−0.011∗∗ ∗ −0.011∗∗∗ −0.013∗∗∗
(0.004) (0.004) (0.004)
−0.004
(0.004)
33,224 34,926 34,926 34,926
0.057 0.056 0.061 0.056
6. Robustness checks and heterogeneous effects
6.1. Robustness checks
In the earlier sections, I show that my estimates are robust with
or without the inclusion of household characteristics, district-specific
trends, and the post-program observables trends. I also show that
the results are consistent under alternative empirical strategies, which
support my causal claim. Further robustness checks are presented in
Table 12. All outcome variables are infant mortality. Each column is a
different regression based on different specifications as discussed below.
In column 1, I match the treatment districts to control districts that
are similar based on the observed baseline characteristics in 2007. The
basic idea is that these matching districts would otherwise be expected
to change similarly in the absence of the program. In particular, I use
Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) and match districts based on district
kerosene use, firewood use, LPG use, and rural-urban status at the base-
line. Then, I run the OLS regression using the calculated CEM weights,
year of birth fixed effects, and birth characteristics. I find that the pro-
gram effect does not change, even though the sample size is somewhat
less than in the main specification.
In column 2, I exclude the first year of the program implementation
since I do not know the exact month of implementation. In column 3,
I cluster the standard error at the household level. In column 4, I use
the district’s level of kerosene as the control variable and interacted
with the post dummy program. In column 5, I add a district poor count
as an additional control variable. I use the total number of households
that do not have a private toilet in a district as a proxy for the district’s
poor count. In column 6, I add the month-year of birth fixed effects
to account for any variation due to seasonality (e.g., when households
work in an agriculture sector, seasonality might influence infant mor-
tality, since their income can be higher during certain months and sea-
sons). In column 7, I use a “fake” program, as if the program in each
district happened two years before the actual program roll-out. These
results are not sensitive to the selection of the fake program timing.
The results in columns 2–6 suggest that the estimated coefficients
are unchanged, despite different specifications used. Similarly, there is
no effect from the placebo treatment on infant mortality, which indi-
cates that trends in infant mortality are similar in the pre-program
period. This result serves as a placebo check, mitigating concerns that
the program is confounded with unobservable determinants of infant
mortality.
Lastly, the reduction in infant mortality might be driven by selective
migration. It is difficult to find any compelling reason that the program
is correlated with selective migration. I expect that the program is not
a strong driver for households to migrate to a different district, con-
sidering the cost of moving. Nonetheless, mobility across districts in
Indonesia is very low. As IDHS does not record any migration history,
0 Imelda Journal of Development Economics 147 (2020) 102548

Table 13
Heterogenous Effects by Gender and Rural-Urban classification.
Boys Girls Urban Rural
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Program Exposure (1/0) −0.005 −0.017∗∗∗ −0.011∗ −0.013∗∗
(0.006) (0.006) (0.006) (0.006)

Observations 18,333 16,593 11,844 23,082

R-squared 0.07 0.06 0.07 0.06
Control Mean 0.052 0.035 0.033 0.048
Full Control X Post Y Y Y Y
Total households 16,474 15,075 9814 18,899
Diff [p-value] −0.010 [0.032] 0.002 [0.678]

Notes: The dependent variable is infant mortality. The sample is split by gender (columns
1–2) and by rural vs. urban (column 3–4). All regressions use year fixed effects, dis-
trict fixed effects, birth, and household characteristics, and each household characteristic
interacted with a post-program dummy. Standard errors (in parentheses) are clustered by
district. The difference between the two coefficients (column 1 vs. 2) and (3 vs. 4) are
reported on the last row, with p-values on the brackets.
Source: IDHS 2002, 2007, 2012 (excluding districts prior to the 2009 expansion year).
∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗ p < 0.05, ∗ p < 0.1.

I use the census data and show that migration across districts involves
less than 5% of the total population. This is even lower for households
with children under five years of age (less than 1%). This graphical
evidence is shown in Fig. A.4 in the Appendix.
6.2. Heterogeneous effects
Boys vs. Girls.—A large body of literature suggests that male fetuses
are biologically more fragile than female fetuses (see Clougherty, 2010
for a review). In this section, I explore the heterogeneous effects of sub-
samples by the infant’s gender. All of the regressions use infant mor-
tality as the dependent variable and a full set of controls: year fixed
effects, district fixed effects, control variables (discussed in Section 3.3)
and the interactions between control variables and the post-program
dummy. The results in Table 13 suggests that the program effects are
larger among girls than among men (p-value of the difference is 0.032).
From the control mean, it is clear that, on average, boys have a higher
infant mortality rate than girls. Considering that LPG may still be pol-
luting, or the outdoor air pollution can still penetrate indoors, it is pos-
sible that the reduction in indoor air pollution is not sufficiently large
for weaker boys to survive.
Urban vs. Rural.—Analyzing the heterogeneous effects by urban-
rural classification can be a simple way to remove potentially omit-
ted variables from ambient air pollution (e.g., from traffic congestion),
which has been shown to have severe health consequences for infants
(Currie and Walker, 2011; Knittel et al., 2016). It is possible that moth-
ers in urban areas are more exposed to outdoor air pollution. As a result,
the improvement in the indoor air quality induced by the program is
larger for infants born in a rural area where outdoor air pollution is
less severe. While reliable measurements of ambient air pollution for
the whole nation are nonexistent, intuitively, more urbanized areas are
likely to have higher ambient air pollution (i.e., higher local air pollu-
tion from the transportation sector), compared to rural areas. I find that
the program reduced infant mortality both in rural and urban. How-
ever, I cannot reject that the two coefficients are statistically different
(p-value of 0.678) which may be due to small sample size for house-
holds in the urban areas.
7. Conclusions
The seventh United Nations Sustainable Development Goal calls
for universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern
energy by 2030. There are about 2.3 billion people globally who do
not have access to clean cooking fuels (World Bank, 2018). Interven-
tions in clean energy must be scaled up significantly to support this
agenda and proper cost and benefit calculations are needed urgently.
Despite its importance, to my knowledge, there is no study that mea-
sures the causal health impact from a large-scale household fuel conver-
sion program. Traditional cost and benefit analyses often leave out the
health benefits in the calculation as there are no reliable estimates of
the health benefits of adopting clean energy, thereby underestimating
the total benefits.
I estimate the health impact of clean cooking using a nationwide
fuel-switching program in Indonesia. The program reached more than
50 million homes and successfully reduced total kerosene consumption
by more than 80% within four years. I find that the program led to a sig-
nificant reduction in infant mortality, both on the extensive and inten-
sive margin. Program-induced indoor air quality improvements likely
played an important role, since switching from kerosene to LPG is asso-
ciated with a substantial reduction in the average exposure of PM2.5
and CO. If moving away from kerosene towards LPG led to a significant
reduction in infant mortality, then moving away from biomass (i.e., the
dirtiest fuel) is expected to lead to even greater health benefits.
The current investigation is particularly timely, as estimating the
link between kerosene use and health has become increasingly impor-
tant. First and foremost, this paper supports the recent World Health
Organization (WHO) guidelines that discourage the use of kerosene.
Furthermore, given that a large population is still using kerosene, the
global health impact of moving away from it is likely quite large.
Kerosene still plays a major role in household consumption in most
developing countries. Globally, approximately 500 million households
use kerosene for cooking (Lam et al., 2012) and one billion people
rely on kerosene and other polluting devices for lighting (WHO, 2016).
Most developing countries continue to encourage the use of kerosene
by highly subsidizing it. The average direct subsidies of kerosene reach
approximately $44 million per day (Mills, 2017). Not only is the cost of
subsidizing kerosene high, but the health costs of using are also likely
to be substantial.
The total health benefits of the program are likely to be much
greater than what is documented since this paper only focuses on one of
the possible health benefits of the program: infant mortality. Nonethe-
less, without accounting for any health benefits, the program already
yielded a net savings of about USD 2.9 billion from the removal of
kerosene subsidies (Budya and Arofat, 2011). Other health benefits,
such as fewer respiratory illnesses, improved child and adult morbid-
ity rates, and other benefits outside of health such as labor force par-
ticipation and environmental impact, are left for future research. For
example, Budya and Arofat (2011) discuss that the new investment in
LPG created 28 thousand new jobs and reduced CO2 emissions by 8.4
million tonnes per year. A full accounting of the different ways that

16
0 Imelda
indoor air pollution affects health is beyond the scope of this paper, but
the findings from this paper suggest that the health benefit of providing
a cleaner fuel is profound among infants, the most vulnerable group.
Author statement
Imelda: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Validation, For-
mal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original
draft, Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project
administration, Funding acquisition.
Acknowledgement
For their comments and suggestions, I thank the editor, the anony-
mous referees, Arya Gaduh, Natalia Fabra, Irma Clots Figueras, Inessa
Love, Michael J. Roberts, Timothy Halliday, John Lynham, Kirk Smith,
Budy Resosudarmo, Jaime Millan, Teresa Molina, Wayne Liou, and sem-
inar participants at the University of Hawai’i at Mā noa, Universidad
Carlos III de Madrid, UNU-WIDER, Camp Resources NC State, Aus-
tralian National University, Australian Development Economics Work-
shop, AAEA Meeting, CSWEP “Health and Development” 2018 AEA Ses-
sion, Royal Economic Society 2019. For their help with data, I thank
staff members at Pertamina. For their help in proof reading the article,
I thank Josue V. Guerra and Bill Ngo. I gratefully acknowledge support
from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Hori-
zon 2020 research and innovation program (772331). All errors are my
own.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102548.
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