Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/147488 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
CAWM Discussion Paper No. 88
Publisher: 
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Centrum für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (CAWM), Münster
Abstract: 
Affordable energy is one of the objectives of EU's energy policy. This goal has been challenged by many factors inuencing energy prices and costs such as developments in global energy markets, the EU ETS and the promotion of renewables. Analysing energy costs (prices times quantity) instead of prices has the advantage of taking into account quantity adjustments. However, it does not allow for monitoring the burden which energy costs pose on firms. For this purpose, both the European Commission and the Energy Expert Commission of the German Government recommend using real unit energy costs, defined as energy costs as fraction of value added. We develop an input-output based (real unit) energy cost accounting framework and study the trends in Germany and the EU between 1995 and 2011. We find that many of the unveiled developments are not adequately represented in the political debate, especially with regard to indirect costs (via energy embodied in intermediate inputs), which are more diffcult to assess. Indirect energy costs are on the rise, are larger than direct costs in many industries, are increasingly imported and amplify the asymmetric impacts of legal exceptions available to energy-intensive industries.
Subjects: 
Direct energy costs
Indirect energy costs
Energy costs of intermediate consumption
Real unit energy costs
Energy cost analysis
Input-output based (total real unit) energy cost accounting
JEL: 
O14
Q48
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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