The purported benefits of improved cook stoves (ICS) in developing countries include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as improved health, fuel cost savings, and more diffuse benefits from the preservation of forested areas (Jeuland & Pattanayak, 2012). However, use of improved cooking technologies requires a complex set of adjustments by users, along several margins that affect net benefits: 1) the time budget, induced by changes in cooking efficiency and time required for fuel collection; 2) the pecuniary budget, given changes in stove and fuel cost; and 3) the generation of household benefits from cooking, as affected by adjustments in the type and amounts of food cooked. Little is known about how user cooking preferences and local context relate to benefits and long-term behaviors related to clean stoves. This makes it difficult for stove promoters to know how to most successfully target interventions.

This study considers experimental evidence from an intervention developed to alter the relative costs and benefits of ICS adoption among households in rural Uttarakhand, India. Roughly 70% of 1,050 sample households were randomly assigned to receive a stove sales visit, during which they were given a household demonstration, fact sheets, and other information about two ICS technologies. All treatment households were then assigned one of three levels of randomized rebates, and given a sales offer that combined the rebate with a financing plan. Households acquiring a stove agreed to pay for the stove in three equal biweekly installments, using the rebate as a discount on the final payment. The hope was that the rebate would both lead to greater adoption of stoves and incentivize experimentation with the stove over the 4-week financing period.

Results show high interest in ICS among survey respondents. About 50% of households targeted by the sales campaign purchased at least one of the two intervention stoves, and the percentage owning any improved stove increased by 42% over the control group. Use of intervention stoves increased by 27% in the intervention group compared to the control group, and use of any improved stove increased by 29%. We also observed a very large effect of increasing rebates on purchases, which rise from 25% to 70% across the three rebate levels (which range from 3% to 33% of the cost of the stove). These differential adoption rates further translate into significant effects on use. Finally, we find a significant relationship between stated preferences for ICS features collected in baseline household surveys using discrete choice experiments, and adoption of stoves during the intervention.

Contrary to previous findings in the literature, these results point to significant latent demand for ICS, particularly for technologies such as the electric stove that offer advantages such as an ability to change fuels, much faster cooking). This likely partly reflects the relatively reliable electricity across our study sites, in addition to the features of the intervention that focused on addressing liquidity constraints (via financing) and preferences (by offering households a choice between multiple technologies).