Electricity vs clean fuel: Energy access and economic development in ASEAN countries

Purpose — This study examines the association between electricity access, clean cooking accessibility, and economic development in ASEAN countries during 2000–2023. It also examines whether the association between electricity access and economic development varies with clean cooking accessibility and considers major structural shocks, including the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods — Using balanced panel data for 11 ASEAN countries from the World Development Indicators, this study applies fixed-effects estimation, interaction-effect modelling, robust estimation, and two-step System Generalised Method of Moments (System GMM) to account for unobserved heterogeneity, potential endogeneity, and dynamic persistence.Findings — Electricity access and clean cooking access are positively and statistically significantly associated with GDP per capita in the baseline fixed-effects and robustness estimates. The interaction between electricity and clean cooking access is negative and statistically significant, indicating that the association between electricity access and GDP per capita varies with the level of clean cooking access. In the System GMM estimation, electricity and clean cooking access are not statistically significant, while lagged GDP per capita is positive and significant, indicating substantial persistence in economic development.Implication — The findings highlight the importance of treating electricity and clean cooking access as distinct dimensions of energy development and of improving equitable access to modern household energy across ASEAN.Originality — The study distinguishes electricity access from clean cooking accessibility and combines interaction analysis with static and dynamic panel estimation in the ASEAN context.