Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/171643 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper Series No. 14/200
Publisher: 
ETH Zurich, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research, Zurich
Abstract: 
In this paper we estimate the long- and short-run price elasticities of residential electricity consumption in Switzerland from a household survey by constructing an index of the stock of household appliances as well as by using energy services. We create the index by aggregating the information on the major household appliances. The index is used to estimate the impact of appliances on residential electricity demand. Furthermore, we also use energy services to estimate the electricity demand. We adopt an instrumental variables approach to obtain consistent estimates of the price elasticity to account for potential endogeneity concerns with the average price as well as the appliance index. Our results suggest that the price elasticity is around -0.6. We conclude that Swiss households are price inelastic in electricity prices. This can be used for policy makers as well as by utility companies to design pricing instruments to modify electricity consumption. We also find that estimates of the electricity demand when we substitute the usual residential characteristics with energy services are quite comparable.
Subjects: 
Residential electricity
appliance stock index
energy services
instrumental variables
JEL: 
D
D1
Q
Q4
Q5
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
859.27 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.