As part of a comprehensive investigation into the electrical conduction and interfacial properties of cadmium selenide thin films, electrical measurements have been performed on metal-CdSe-metal sandwich structures with electrodes of aluminium and gold. Such studies are important in the context of inexpensive solar cells based on this material. Samples were deposited using conventional vacuum evaporation. Both dark current density-voltage (J-V) and differential capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements were performed. Samples having symmetric gold electrodes showed ohmic conduction at low voltages and space-charge limited conduction (SCLC) at higher voltage levels, with a thermally activated carrier concentration of 4.2 x 10(20) m(-3). In accordance with earlier work, samples with symmetric aluminium electrodes, showed similar ohmic and SCLC behaviour, but with carrier concentrations of 2.0 x 10(18) m(-3) Asymmetric samples with one gold and one aluminium electrode showed carrier concentrations of 4.2 x 10(19) m(-3) and 7.3 x 10(19) m(-3) when the electrodes on the substrate side of the films were aluminium and gold, respectively. At higher voltage levels, a field-lowering coefficient beta = (2.70-3.61) x 10(-5) eV m(1/2) V-1/2, depending on the electrode configuration, was determined, indicative of Schottky emission or the Poole-Frenkel effect. The results suggest that gold electrodes may be beneficial in providing efficient electron injection into CdSe films.