Powering Up China: Income Distributions and Residential Electricity Consumption
Maximilian Auffhammer, Catherine D. Wolfram
American Economic Review · 2014 · Volume 104 · Issue 5
Abstract
Current forecasts suggest that the vast majority of growth in energy demand will come from the developing world, and that China will play a major part in that growth. This paper presents evidence suggesting that the shape of the income distribution, which is typically omitted from forecasting models, plays a major role in driving household acquisition of energy-using durable goods in rural China. We use province-level data for rural households to show that the share of the population living above the poverty line is an important determinant of household appliance holdings even controlling for average household income.
Keywords
Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions, Electric Utilities, Economic Development: Agriculture, Natural Resources, Energy, Environment, Other Primary Products, Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Natural Resources, Energy: Demand and Supply, Prices, Energy Forecasting, Energy: Government Policy
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