The Cookstove Conundrum

Rema Hanna and Edward Glaeser, Faculty Fellows of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program (HEEP), and Michael Greenstone, HEEP Associate Scholar, were featured in a New York Times article on programs to distribute clean cookstoves to poor rural areas in the developing world. Such stoves have the potential to reduce indoor air pollution, with attendant environmental and health benefits, but these HEEP affiliates argue that behavioral factors limit the realization of the technology’s potential. See also a related working paper by Hanna, Greenstone, and colleague Esther Duflo.