  The production of electrons from heavy-flavour hadron decays was measured as
a function of transverse momentum ($p_{\rm T}$) in minimum-bias p-Pb collisions
at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}=5.02$ TeV with ALICE at the LHC. The measurement covers
the $p_{\rm T}$ interval $0.5<p_{\rm T}<12$ GeV/$c$ and the rapidity range
$-1.06 < y_{\rm cms} < 0.14$ in the centre-of-mass reference frame. The
contribution of electrons from background sources was subtracted using an
invariant mass approach. The nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm pPb}$ was
calculated by comparing the $p_{\rm T}$-differential invariant cross section in
p-Pb collisions to a pp reference at the same centre-of-mass energy, which was
obtained by interpolating measurements at $\sqrt{s}= 2.76$ TeV and $\sqrt{s}
=7$ TeV. The $R_{\rm pPb}$ is consistent with unity within uncertainties of
about 25%, which become larger for $p_{\rm T}$ below 1 GeV/$c$. The measurement
shows that heavy-flavour production is consistent with binary scaling, so that
a suppression in the high-$p_{\rm T}$ yield in Pb-Pb collisions has to be
attributed to effects induced by the hot medium produced in the final state.
The data in p-Pb collisions are described by recent model calculations that
include cold nuclear matter effects.
