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This paper presents two analyses of underlying preferences for cookstove technologies in the context of rural Bangladesh. First, we report survey evidence on women’s stated preferences for cookstove technologies that probes their perceptions about the harm of indoor air pollution, what attributes of cookstoves they value most highly (including health and non-health factors), and how they prioritize cookstoves relative to other basic developmental needs. Second, we present experimental evidence on households’ revealed preferences for two types of nontraditional cookstove designs, one that advertises fuel-efficiency gains and another that reduces indoor smoke by redirecting emissions through a chimney, by conducting a cluster-randomized trial of prices for these new technologies. Overall, we find a variety of congruent evidence suggesting that rural women in Bangladesh do not prioritize nontraditional cookstoves over other basic developmental needs despite demonstrating awareness of their potential negative health consequences. Because they overwhelmingly rely on a traditional cookstove technology that costs nothing and are accordingly not willing to pay much for a new nontraditional cookstove, non-health considerations are the most salient determinants of cookstove technology choices. Our price experiment confirms negligible adoption rates at full price and despite our very large price elasticity estimates (ranging between ?8 and ?10). This result implies that large discounts by themselves are unlikely to promote substantial adoption and use. Efforts to promote non- traditional cookstoves may be more successful by developing and emphasizing designs with features valued more highly, even ones unrelated to cookstoves’ health and environmental impact.

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We reinforced these insights through an analysis of revealed preferences by conducting a cluster-randomized trial of cookstove prices. The two main findings from this analysis were that demand for nontraditional cookstoves at both market and highly subsidized prices is very low and that demand is highly sensitive to price (in relative terms). Actual adoption rates at full price were negligible, ranging between 2% (for chimney cookstoves) and 5% (for efficiency cookstoves). Consistent with respondents’ not valuing cookstoves relative to competing needs, adoption decisions were also highly sensitive to price, with price elasticities ranging between ?8 (for efficiency cookstoves) and ?10 (for chimney cookstoves). More elastic demand for chimney cookstoves relative to efficiency cookstoves is also consistent with preferences for lower fuel costs over less indoor smoke. Despite this price sensitivity, large discounts failed to produce quantitatively important gains in adoption: 50% price reductions only led to 12% increase in the adoption of efficiency cookstoves and 5% increase in the adoption of chimney cookstoves.

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