Supply-Side Constraints to Technology Adoption: The Market for Energy-Efficient Cookstoves in Rural Senegal

Diffusion of technology that improves welfare is a global policy priority. We study the market for energy efficient biomass cookstoves in rural Senegal. Our surveys cover stove producers and intermediary vendors on the supply side and also elicit demand from rural households using real-purchase offers. We randomly relax supply-side constraints among vendors by providing demand information, marketing materials, and a transportation grant to bridge the last mile to villages where customers reside. We find that the transportation grant increases vendor sales, but overall, our results indicate that market conditions are challenging: markups are lower than for competing products and demand is volatile. This combination of high risks and low profits need to be addressed by policy interventions if large-scale diffusion is the goal.