Susanna’s research examines energy and environmental economics in developing countries. Susanna’s job market paper found that credit constraints can prevent low-income households in Nairobi, Kenya from adopting energy efficiency investments even when these generate financial returns averaging 300% per year, and showed that subsidies on energy efficient technologies may therefore generate larger welfare gains than carbon taxes in this context. In ongoing work Susanna is studying the socioeconomic impacts of power outages in Ghana using the novel GridWatch technologies, and researching the political economy of rural electrification using administrative data from Kenya Power. Susanna’s other research, studying how temperature affects household electricity demand in South Africa, is forthcoming in the Energy Journal.

Susanna has been a graduate student researcher with the Energy Institute since 2015.