engendering an inclusive low carbon energy transition in japan considering the perspectives and awareness of the energy poor abstract engendering a low carbon energy transition is necessary to limit climate change impacts and temperature rises ideally this transition would be inclusive incorporating all stakeholders however the issue of energy or fuel poverty is a major obstacle to this goal this research investigates energy poverty in japan using a subjective multidimensional energy poverty measure clarifying the linkages between energy poverty and an inclusive just transition in terms of energy system and policy awareness behavior and preferences through the analysis of an original survey we uncover that there is a marked difference between low income and energy poverty households environmental awareness and their subsequent attitude toward the low carbon energy transition currently the energy poor have a negative attitude toward the low carbon energy transition in japan causing a lack of self reported engagement which will not engender an inclusive just transition our findings suggest that if the japanese low carbon energy transition were to be inclusive a further 5 percent of households could participate in the low carbon energy transition through access to solar or renewable energy capital findings identify the need for policies targeted at the energy poor specifically promoting access to solar capital and low carbon technologies in addition to existing policies targeted at low income households

measuring the affordability of home ownership typical measures of the affordability of home ownership are based on aggregate data that ignore the distribution of incomes and wealth and the range of house prices an analysis of household survey

does energy poverty really exist in china from the perspective of residential electricity consumption abstract china is undergoing a market oriented reform in energy and the residential sector will be involved in the near future the analysis of energy poverty is crucial in breaking the illusion of the dilemma between enhancing energy efficiency and controlling poverty based on chinese residential energy consumption survey we firstly estimated the energy poverty in china by the 10 indicator and lihc indicators and then proposed a minimum end use method to classify the energy poor households into lifeline and consumption energy poverty results show that energy poverty exists in china at the proportion of 18 9 and 46 of the energy poor houses are in short of modern energy consumption and are sensitive to tariffs with a level of electricity consumption lower than the basic demand the energy poverty rate is highest in central china while the lifeline energy poor are relatively concentrated in the western region in terms of public policy we suggest focusing on heterogeneity by considering different groups of households when implementing energy efficiency measures and targeting more on the consumption energy poor in poverty alleviation we also suggest paying particular attention to targeting households with low income by supporting practices such as coupons for energy consumption and appliance purchasing

an economic approach to the study of the relationship between housing hazards and health the case of residential fuel poverty in france abstract the impact of housing hazards on health outcomes is becoming a major issue especially given the recent and on going reviews of energy legislation in many european countries a large body of epidemiological literature argues that fuel poverty a frequently debated example of a housing hazard involving low indoor temperatures is associated with heightened health risks by using a large scale nationally representative dataset i seek in this article to delve into this alleged association and uncover a causal relationship between fuel poverty and self assessed health coming from an economics standpoint i used a panel approach based on an instrumental fixed effects model which allow me to analyse causality i used both objective and subjective fuel poverty indicators the results show that there is a significant causal relationship between fuel poverty and self assessed health status the estimated causality is exacerbated when subjective fuel poverty indicators are used the results also show that the negative impact of fuel poverty on health is deferred meaning that fuel poverty takes time to manifest itself in terms of poor health in policy terms this study adds to the debate on investing in housing energy efficiency schemes to reduce fuel poverty and thereby improve health outcomes it also lends support to the argument according to which improving housing conditions to curb fuel poverty is a lever for reducing pubic expenditures on health care

the competitive effects of partial equity interests and joint ventures abstract antitrust authorities should consider the trade off between enhanced efficiency and reduced competition in cases of partial ownership this paper examines the competitive effects side of that trade off in the context of a modified cournot model we show that in markets where entry is difficult partial ownership arrangements could result in less output and higher prices than otherwise even if the ownership shares are relatively small these effects arise solely because these arrangements link the fortunes of actual or potential competitors producing a positive correlation among their profits in this sense the effects are purely structural they arise not because of increased opportunities for collusion or changes in the concentration of control but because the linking of profits reduces each firm s incentive to compete since these links internalize free rider problems associated with policing collusion and investing in entry deterrence however they could also enhance cartel stability and profitability

electricity tariff reforms welfare impacts and energy poverty implications abstract like other energy exporting countries brunei darussalam has pursued an energy pricing policy that sets energy prices below market rates the country introduced tariff reforms replacing the declining block tariff dbt scheme by an increasing block tariff ibt structure in 2012 the reform however was a rate structure change and not a subsidy removal and electricity tariffs in the country remained lower than the long run marginal cost the study investigated a subsidy removal scenario setting the tariff rate at the short run marginal cost which is around 200 higher than the current average tariff rate the results show that with ibt welfare losses and the increase in electricity expenditures would be high for non poor households for those living in urban areas and for those engaged in white collar jobs and it would have been the reverse had the government not introduced tariff rate structure reforms under price elasticity scenarios welfare losses would be high under inelastic than elastic demand case for both ibt and dbt cases electricity expenditures however would remain below 5 level far lower than the energy poverty threshold level of 10 of household income the tariff structure reform therefore shielded the lowest income households from potential impacts of subsidy removal

fuel poverty in the uk is there a difference between rural and urban areas abstract fuel poverty is a significant policy issue an argument often made is that rural households are more likely to be fuel poor due to the nature of rural housing stock and the more limited choice of energy sources in rural areas this paper uses panel data to compare the level and dynamics of fuel poverty in rural and urban areas of the uk in addition to descriptive analysis discrete hazard models of fuel poverty exit and re entry are estimated and used to assess the influence of housing and personal characteristics on the time spent in fuel poverty the results indicate that on average the experience of fuel poverty in urban areas is longer with a higher probability of fuel poverty persistence however on average the rural fuel poor appear more vulnerable to energy price increases while living in private accommodation or a flat increases their probability of remaining fuel poor relative to their urban counterparts these results indicate policy effectiveness may differ across rural and urban space however they also emphasise the limits of spatial targeting monitoring the dynamics of fuel poverty is important for ensuring that policy targets are effective and reaching those most in need

objective vs subjective fuel poverty and self assessed health abstract identification of fuel poverty and its impact on individuals is a growing social issue classifying households using subjective measures of fuel poverty yields different results than when objective measures are used moreover there are assessment related difficulties in establishing the effects on health and wellbeing which hinders policy design to tackle this problem in this paper we propose a latent class ordered probit model to control for subjectivity when analysing the influence of fuel poverty on self reported health this methodology is applied to a sample of 25 000 individuals in 11 000 households for the 2011 2014 period in spain where 5 1 million people 11 of the population could not afford to heat their homes to an adequate temperature in 2014 the results show that poor housing conditions low income material deprivation and fuel poverty have a negative impact on health we also find that the effect of objective fuel poverty and other poverty related factors on health are stronger when we control for unobserved heterogeneity among individuals since objective measures alone may not fully capture the adverse effect of fuel poverty on health we advocate policy approaches that combine both objective and subjective measures and its application by policymakers

the collapse of purchasing power parities during the 1970 s one of the striking facts concerning the relationship beiveen prices and exchange rates during the 1970 s has been the dismal performance of the predictions of the simple versions of the purchasing power parity doctrine ppp that doctrine in its absolute version states that the equilibrium exchange rate between domestic and foreign currencies equals the ratio of domestic to foreign price levels the relative version of the doctrine relates equilibrium changes in exchange rates to changes in the ratio of domestic to foreign prices during the 1970 s short run changes in exchange rates bore little relationship to short run differentials in national inflation rates and frequently divergences from purchasing power parities have been cumulative this paper reviews and analyzes the empirical record of exchange rates and prices during the 1970 s and the analysis is based on the experience of the dollar pound the dollar frecch franc and the dollar dm exchange rates section 2 presents the evidence on ppp during the 1970 s and contrasts it with the evidence from the 1920 s a period during which the doctrine held up reasonably well this analysis is relevant for assessing whether the flexible exchange rate system was successful in providing national economies with an added degree of insulation from foreign shocks and whether it provided policymakers with an added instrument for the conduct of macroeconomic policy the evidence regarding devia tions from purchasing power parities is also relevant for determining whether there is a case for managed float section 3 attempts to explain what went wrong with

unit roots and the real exchange rate before world war i the case of britain and the usa abstract unit root and cointegration tests indicate that the dollar pound real exchange rate was stationary during the us greenback and gold standard periods purchasing powwer parity ppp performed about equally well in the two periods and better than in recent years deviations from ppp were corrected by changes in british prices and us gold dollar prices greenback prices did not adjust the similarity of the adjustment parameters in the two periods suggests that expectations of a return to gold were embedded in the greenback price of gold

bertrand competition when firms hold passive ownership stakes in one another abstract we show that the bertrand oligopoly model with cost asymmetries may admit multiple nash equilibria when firms hold passive ownership stakes in each other the equilibrium price may be as high as the monopoly price of the most efficient firm

can pay won t pay or economic principles of affordability the term afford ability has been gaining currency in housing policy debates but neither government nor academic researchers have given much consideration to defining it this paper considers what meanings have been given to the term affordability in practice and suggests a range of analytically more useful definitions it argues from economic first principles that it is more logical to use some form of residual income definition than one based on a prescribed ratio of housing costs to income most researchers have been using a ratio definition the paper then uses data from a household survey in the glasgow travel to work area in 1988 89 to examine the incidence of unaffordability of housing costs according to a variety of definitions

energy affordability in the eu the risks of metric driven policies abstract this paper provides a pan eu mapping of energy affordability using energy expenditure shares large variations in energy expenditure shares are identified with the shares being significantly higher in new member states than the eu15 first these variations indicate that a single expenditure based pan eu fuel poverty metric is problematic there is a trade off between a metric identifying households in most need within individual member states and one identifying households in a similar position across member states second household level data from the uk france and the republic of ireland are used to simulate the impact of policy interventions involving energy expenditure reductions or income increases on the recorded rate of fuel poverty these simulations highlight that emphasising high level fuel poverty metrics may distort policymakers choices towards improving the picture of fuel poverty rather than maximising welfare improvements robust impact assessments identifying the fuel poverty interventions which deliver the greatest welfare increases for a given cost offer a better means of policy evaluation

empowered examining self disconnection in a postal survey of electricity prepayment meter consumers in new zealand abstract prepayment metering is an electricity payment method often used by low income consumers fuel poverty is an important public health problem in new zealand and is likely to be a particular problem for those using prepayment metering this paper details a nationwide postal survey of consumers undertaken with the support of three major electricity retailers which investigated the advantages and disadvantages of using prepayment metering from a consumer perspective the study surveyed a total pool of 359 randomly selected consumers across the three companies a response rate of 48 the study found that while almost all respondents felt the benefits of using prepayment outweighed the risks of running out of credit or self disconnection 53 of respondents experienced self disconnection in the past year of concern over a third of respondents experiencing self disconnection were without electricity for more than 12 h the frequency of self disconnection was also high with 17 of those disconnecting reporting six or more events in the past year government intervention could reduce the risks and disadvantages involved with using prepayment metering which could then support initiatives aimed at reducing fuel poverty

real and nominal shocks in a two country price setting world abstract this paper develops a two country model in which the law of one price does not hold in the short run and which is consistent with the stylized fact that exchange rates respond more quickly to news than prices this is done by assuming that firms face lumpy information costs in determining what price to charge both domestic and imported goods prices are therefore sticky with respect to news and deviations from the law of one price ppp are due to exchange rate surprises the model is used to analyze the domestic and international impact of real and nominal disturbances

fuel poverty and access to electricity comparing households when they differ in needs although sequential stochastic dominance techniques have been used in the literature to make comparisons of income poverty which are robust to the assumptions made about the economies of scale within households the techniques could be applied to a much wider set of issues in this paper these techniques are applied to energy deprivation in guatemala fuel poverty is compared among households with and without access to electricity and it is assessed whether access to electricity for those who do not have access currently would eliminate the observed difference in fuel poverty between the two groups of households

measuring fuel poverty in france which households are the most fuel vulnerable fuel poverty is a growing concern in france following the hike in energy prices that started in 2004 the problem of energy affordability for low income households entered the political debate with the grenelle de l environnement in 2007 according to the standard uk definition 10 ratio 3 8 million households were subject to fuel poverty in france in 2006 we question the way fuel poverty is currently measured and compare the impact of alternative measurement approaches on the extent and composition of fuel poverty in france then we identify and characterize vulnerable households that are not ordinarily poor but can be pushed into poverty because of their fuel bills a logit a clog log and a mixed effect logit model are used to analyze which factors influence the probability of vulnerable households to fall into poverty the study indicates that the proportion of fuel poor people and their characteristics differ significantly depending on the fuel poverty measure chosen the econometric results show that the probability of falling into poverty is higher for those who are retired living alone rent their home use an individual boiler for heating cook with butane or propane and have poor roof insulation current french fuel poverty reduction policies appear to be inappropriate given our conclusions

cross shareholdings and competition in a rent seeking contest abstract we consider a tullock rent seeking contest with two firms and two investors each investor owns a majority share in one firm and a silent minority cross shareholding in the other firm we measure competition by either firms aggregate efforts or rent dissipation we show that aggregate efforts are smaller in our contest than in the benchmark case without cross shareholdings next we provide the necessary and sufficient conditions such that equilibrium rent dissipation in our contest is larger than in the benchmark case rent dissipation is larger under cross shareholdings if and only if one firm is much more efficient than the other firm and the cross shareholding in the more efficient firm is sufficiently smaller than the cross shareholding in the less efficient firm

functional form and aggregate energy demand elasticities a nonparametric panel approach for 17 oecd countries this paper studies whether the commonly used linear parametric model for estimating aggregate energy demand is the correct functional specification for the data generating process parametric and n

exposure and risk to fuel poverty in france examining the extent of the fuel precariousness and its salient determinants abstract millions of households experience fuel poverty around the world commonly defined in broad terms in the early 1990s to cover households whose total energy bills exceeded 10 of their net income first this paper outlines the measurement of fuel poverty using the low income high costs indicator lihc and examines the main characteristics of fuel poor households in france based on multidimensional statistical analysis using a new micro level survey data it then explores the salient determinants of fuel poverty risk using logistic regression about 3 18 million households are estimated to be in fuel poverty representing 12 of all french households the hierarchical classification suggested four distinct profiles which shed light on the main features of fuel poor households additionally results show that the risk of being fuel poor and the depth of fuel poverty increase significantly with lower epc rating house and confirm the existence of a social gradient in fuel poverty recognition of this aspect can be helpful for developing economically efficient policies to address fuel poverty this study does not aim to be exhaustive in policy implications terms but rather to present a new way of thinking about fuel poverty solutions by targeting different household groups

counting and multidimensional poverty measurement this paper proposes a new methodology for multidimensional poverty measurement consisting of an identification method k that extends the traditional intersection and union approaches and a class of poverty measures m our identification step employs two forms of cutoff one within each dimension to determine whether a person is deprived in that dimension and a second across dimensions that identifies the poor by counting the dimensions in which a person is deprived the aggregation step employs the fgt measures appropriately adjusted to account for multidimensionality the axioms are presented as joint restrictions on identification and the measures and the methodology satisfies a range of desirable properties including decomposability the identification method is particularly well suited for use with ordinal data as is the first of our measures the adjusted headcount ratio we present some dominance results and an interpretation of the adjusted headcount ratio as a measure of unfreedom examples from the us and indonesia illustrate our methodology

measuring energy poverty in japan 2004 2013 abstract this paper first examines energy or fuel poverty in japan from 2004 to 2013 especially around the time of the 2011 great east japan earthquake geje to analyze the issue the paper employs various poverty and vulnerability measures with the assistance of our unique dataset the results indicate the aggravation of energy poverty among lower income and vulnerable households during the past decade resulting from both the escalation of energy prices and lowering of income the analysis also employs a new decomposition technique and identifies the explanatory factors associated with the increase in energy poverty these results suggest there were major changes in the forces driving the increase in energy poverty before and after the geje after 2011 income alleviates energy poverty in japan with energy prices becoming the main driving factor

housing wealth and residential energy consumption abstract the housing wealth effect often manifests as a positive relationship between consumption and perceived housing wealth e g the perceived value of houses when the perceived value of a property rises homeowners may feel more comfortable and secure about their wealth causing them to spend more this study adopts a behavioural approach to verify if this relationship holds true for residential energy consumption in the uk while controlling for property characteristics and a large number of demographic socioeconomic and energy use behaviour variables we identified a significant relationship between housing wealth and energy consumption our models also considered psychological biases in energy consumption behaviours such as the framing effect our findings shed light on the behavioural aspects of housing wealth effect on residential energy consumption and demonstrate the potential to nudge households towards energy conservation most importantly we provide empirical evidence on the intriguing relationship among housing wealth residential energy consumption and fuel poverty the findings of this study are particularly helpful in designing and implementing energy consumption policies that can strike a balance between social justice and economic efficiency

conceptualising housing costs the hidden face of energy poverty in poland abstract the study proposes an approach to assess a hidden aspect of energy poverty ep in poland we consider households energy under consumption driven by low energy efficiency and budgetary constraints a household is exposed to hidden energy poverty hep if it s total disposable income after deducting the expected housing cost falls under the established threshold to approximate the expected total housing expenditures the data from the eu silc dataset on dwellings parameters households attributes and regional characteristics of poland is used the results show that in 2017 the scale of exposure to hep in poland was 23 7 per cent and this phenomenon is to some extent linked to income poverty there is a clear distinction between subjective ep indicators and exposure to hep two different profiles of exposed to hep households in poland are constructed the first group lives in detached houses and is composed of households with dependent children the second group consists of elderly people inhabiting blocks of flats both groups should be targeted by separate policies

measuring energy poverty in greece a comprehensive research in the field of energy poverty is undertaken in this paper in an attempt to highlight the great vulnerability of greek households on energy poverty in the middle of a severe economic crisis till now greek energy policy has been considered insufficient to tackle energy poverty issues as focusing mainly on short term rather than permanent solutions a primary survey has been conducted recording objective data of energy expenses as well as subjective perceptions about housing conditions the findings showed that under the objective expenditure based method 58 of greek households are energy poor among households under the poverty threshold the energy poverty rate exceeds 90 existing and new subjective indicators shed light on other aspects of energy poverty such as the level of thermal comfort at home damp problems detected restriction of other essential needs in order to manage energy payments etc some interesting conclusions are also drawn by exploring the relationship between various indicators it appears that households considered energy poor are not identical when examined by objective and subjective indicators however different indicators complement each other by capturing different aspects of the problem and provide a broader overview of the issue

spatializing energy justice this paper introduces the concept of spatial justice and inequality to understandings of energy poverty and vulnerability by applying an explicitly spatial lens to conceptualize energy poverty as a form of injustice it contributes to debates in the domain of energy justice where previous examinations of energy deprivation through a justice framing have focused on inequalities between social groups and often marginalized questions of spatial difference we start from the premise that geographic disparities in the risk and incidence of domestic energy deprivation are a key component of energy justice an extensive literature review has allowed us to highlight the spatial and temporal variation of cross sectoral and entire energy chain injustices that lead to elevated energy poverty risks these processes contribute to the rise of energy injustices via four mechanisms which we term landscapes of material deprivation geographic underpinnings of energy affordability vicious cycles of vulnerability and spaces of misrecognition operating at a multiplicity of scales while lending some support to area based approaches towards energy poverty alleviation our findings also suggest that such policies alone may marginalize the underlying structural dynamics that re produce spatial inequalities therefore achieving energy justice necessitates broader interventions in the fundamental driving forces of spatial inequality

adolescents and electricity consumption investigating sociodemographic economic and behavioural influences on electricity consumption in households with respect to changes in the energy systems of many countries electricity consumption in households is an important topic extensive research has investigated the various determinants of electricity consumption however insights into how specific sociodemographic behavioural and attitudinal determinants influence residential electricity consumption are still scarce in this study we used hierarchical regression analysis to systematically investigate these determinants including household engagement in electricity saving along with a wide range of other measures in a sample of german households n 763 special attention was given to households with adolescents and children by analysing the influence of the number of adolescents on electricity consumption in a path model our results indicate that sociodemographic influences can be explained by the purchasing and use behaviours of residents our findings also suggest that the use of behavioural information provides a more detailed picture of the conditions of electricity consumption and thus allows for more appropriate policy planning

dynamic oligopoly with partial cooperation and antitrust threshold correspondance corresponding author tel 39 011 6705753 fax 39 011 6705783 merlone ugo

vertical cross shareholding theory and experimental evidence abstract this paper analyzes vertical cross shareholding that is the mutual holding of a minority of shares between vertically related firms first we explore the issue in a game theoretic model and show that cross shareholding is sufficient to obtain efficient outcomes we then test the model s predictions in an experiment theory predicts the seller decisions accurately but the buyer decisions only to a small extent buyers are more likely to agree on cross shareholding than sellers in an attempt to avoid the winner s curse cross shareholding occurs more frequently than predicted and it increases the likelihood of trade

does france have a fuel poverty trap abstract in this article we focus on fuel poverty dynamics by answering two questions does france have a fuel poverty trap and what are the determinants of staying in or moving out of fuel poverty first we define three states into which individuals may be placed which are as follows the non fuel poverty state the fuel poverty state and the severe fuel poverty state second we use a mover stayer model that divides the population into the following two types of individuals those who remain in the same state during the observation period the stayers and those who move across states the movers this model applies to longitudinal data from mainland france showing that fuel poverty is not an absorbing state indeed a majority of the fuel poor and the severely fuel poor move to another better state therefore we can argue that france has no fuel poverty trap using two econometric models logit and multinomial logit we identify the stability and mobility determinants in different states as expected there is a relationship between income and the likelihood of an individual remaining in a particular state furthermore poor housing implies a greater likelihood of stability in fuel poverty or severe fuel poverty another result is that deterioration in fuel poverty status seems to stem more from difficult financial situations than from bad dwelling conditions

horizontal integration in the dutch financial sector in this paper the consequences of cross shareholding in an n firm industry are analyzed our attention focuses on the case where firms have silent interests in each other these interests can be direct or indirect we analyze the effects of cross shareholding on the price cost margins in a cournot and a bertrand setting in all cases competition is reduced due to shareholding interlocks as an empirical example the dutch financial sector is used comparing the case of shareholding with the case of no shareholding the price cost margins are found to be up to 2 higher in a bertrand market and at least 8 higher in a cournot market c 2000 elsevier science b v all rights reserved jel classification g20 l13 l41

quantifying the prevalence of fuel poverty across the european union abstract the literature and policy base for fuel poverty in the uk and ireland is well established and there is a growing body of single country studies beyond these two eu member states for example brunner et al 2012 dubois 2012 robine et al 2008 however on a european level the last analysis of fuel poverty was conducted in 2004 prior to the enlargement of the eu using survey data this paper presents an updated overview of the prevalence of european fuel poverty in the context of the accession of numerous former social states and rising fuel prices analysis reveals the phenomenon of fuel poverty is occurring across the eu with particularly high levels of fuel poverty found in eastern and southern european states it is argued that there are both eu and national policy frameworks in place that address climate change and these could be used as a starting point for countries to address fuel poverty through improved domestic energy efficiency measures this paper reflects research undertaken in 2011 supported by eaga charitable trust within the umbrella of work examining issues of poverty and social exclusion across the eu which has enabled access to the eu silc dataset

optimal cross holding with externalities and strategic interactions we analyze a two period setting where firms first choose equity positions in each other and second engage in operating activities that cause externalities firms facing positive externalities optimally choose long equity positions to increase their profits firms facing negative externalities encounter a prisoners dilemma where each firm optimally chooses short positions in the first period committing to a more aggressive operating stance that results in lower profits in contrast to the prior literature regulation restricting cross holdings reduces consumer surplus and economic welfare when the number of firms is fixed however such regulation can increase entry improving net welfare

objective and subjective measures of fuel poverty as energy prices continue to rise to reflect the real cost of carbon the numbers of households in fuel poverty is increasing rapidly this paper uses a unique data set to explore one alternative measure of fuel poverty based on whether consumers feel able to afford their energy similar to one introduced by the government a few years ago we explore the links between an expenditure based and our subjective measure of fuel poverty and compare these differences with those between official measures amongst low income households 28 spent more than a tenth of their income on energy in the home and so would be likely to qualify as fuel poor under the most usual definition but only 16 felt unable to afford sufficient energy to keep their homes warm amongst this group who felt they had difficulty in affording sufficient energy less than half were expenditure fuel poor the paper argues that reintroduction of a self reported measure by the government would be a valuable aid to policy development

exchange rate dynamics an empirical investigation this paper estimates a reduced form exchange rate equation whose estimates are used to address questions on exchange rate overshooting intermediate run exchange rate dynamics and long run proportionality relationships between relative money supplies and exchange rates based on swiss u s data from the period 1973 79 the major findings are that following a monetary shock there is short run exchange rate overshooting by a factor of about two and that subsequent exchange rate adjustments to a new long run equilibrium take longer than 2 years and exhibit nonmonotonic patterns

densification what does it mean for fuel poverty and energy justice an empirical analysis energy is increasingly at the forefront of the global political agenda while there is a longstanding literature relating to fuel poverty and increasingly energy justice there remains little evidence which explores its link with the urban form specifically the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the urban consolidation hypothesis and the cultivation of energy justice in australia this study uses data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey years 2007 2014 a national probability sample and indefinite life panel the substantive findings of this study demonstrate that for low income and renting households greater urban density corresponds to a higher likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty further for households with a dwelling type described as an apartment two or three storeys there is a separate and quite generalisable indication that this type of dwelling is associated with a lower likelihood of experiencing fuel poverty this study connects the debate regarding urban consolidation and energy consumption to the fuel poverty and energy justice literature alongside this contribution this study also provides policymakers and planners with new evidence to inform remediation policies that are directed at supporting the fuel poor

on the power of indicators how the choice of fuel poverty indicator affects the identification of the target population in light of the creation of the eu energy poverty observatory epov in january 2018 and the increase in debates on how fuel poverty is measured we propose a critical analysis of fuel poverty indi

constructing energy poverty profiles for an effective energy policy abstract energy poverty is becoming ever more important for academia and policymakers this study conducts fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis fsqca with the aim of constructing energy poverty profiles fsqca was performed on 150 households the results show that energy poor households are characterised by the interdependence and intertwining of socio demographic ownership status education level labour force status and household size and housing type of building central heating system and solar collectors heat pump characteristics the conditions form eight equifinal configurations related to energy poor households none of the individual characteristics is able to explain energy poverty alone although strong interrelations are present in the outcomes the study also highlights that the conditions play different roles in the presence or absence of energy poverty giving policymakers the necessary leeway to formulate effective policies as part of agendas covering poverty in general poor health climate change and domestic energy inefficiency this study suggests that energy poverty is a structural issue mainly arising from poor energy efficient buildings and or labour market inefficiencies

sticky prices and purchasing power parity deviations empirical implications abstract this note tests one implication of the hypothesis that purchasing power parity ppp deviations are partly caused by different pricing behavior in goods and asset markets cross country regressions of the variance of ppp deviations on the variance of money supply innovations support the hypothesis

subjective versus objective energy burden a look at drivers of different metrics and regional variation of energy poor populations abstract energy poverty is typically assessed using the energy expenditure to income ratio as a metric this metric fails to account though for residents demographics and regional variation in energy consumption in the united states policymakers dealing with energy poverty have faced challenges estimating the needs for energy assistance programs this study seeks to explore regional variations in energy poverty using texas as the region of study this work also explores differences in the populations captured via objective and subjective metrics i e those who are unable to pay their bill and those who state they struggle to do so drawing on survey data this work uses statistical analyses to 1 assess the regional variation of energy poverty defined as a ratio of household income spent on electricity bills 2 determine if there is an association between objective and subjective metrics of energy poverty and 3 identify statistical drivers of objective and subjective energy poverty metrics of respondents 51 of objectively energy burdened individuals indicated they struggled to pay electricity bills and 53 faced great stress due to the electricity bill if policymakers can use metrics that are more accurate in capturing populations facing energy poverty more effective energy poverty policies might be formulated

a stochastic model for energy poverty analysis abstract so far the lack of a common effective way of measuring energy poverty has been detected as a major weakness in handling the energy poverty problem one of the main causes has been the complexity of modeling the required energy consumption of households as demanded by the official 10 indicator and its replacement in calculations by the actual energy consumption which as is well known underestimates the real needs of households this weakness is addressed in this paper through the development of the stochastic model of energy poverty smep the development of the model includes firstly the modeling of energy consumption at household level and subsequently the transition from household level to country level through stochastic analysis monte carlo simulation through sensitivity analysis the impact of various parameters on energy poverty is quantified for the first time by determining their weighting factors applied to the case of greece it is found that energy poverty reaches 70 4 with income being the decisive factor affecting energy poverty at 63 while other variables htot etc follow at significantly lower percentages the findings can be used in order to assess in advance the effectiveness of energy poverty measures making the model a valuable policy tool

coping with low incomes and cold homes abstract this paper presents findings from a study of low income households in great britain which explored households strategies for coping both with limited financial resources in the winter months when demand for domestic energy increases and in some cases with cold homes the study combined a national survey of 699 households with an income below 60 per cent of national median income with in depth interviews with a subsample of 50 households the primary strategy adopted by low income households to cope with financial constraint was to reduce spending including spending on essentials such as food and fuel and thereby keep up with core financial commitments while spending on food was usually reduced by cutting the range and quality of food purchased spending on energy was usually reduced by cutting consumption sixty three per cent of low income households had cut their energy consumption in the previous winter and 47 per cent had experienced cold homes improvements to the thermal performance of homes reduced but did not eliminate the risk of going cold as any heating cost could be a burden to households on the lowest incomes householders attitudes were central to their coping strategies with most expressing a determination to get by come what may

fuel poverty and well being a consumer theory and stochastic frontier approach abstract evidence and conventional wisdom suggest that general poverty has a negative effect on the well being of individuals however the mechanisms through which this effect occurs are not well understood through economic approach in this paper we analyse the influence of general and fuel poverty as well as the social dimension through peer comparison on the subjective well being of households we develop a novel approach to analyse fuel poverty and well being based on consumer theory individual preferences are modelled using indifference curves and a distance function where the preferences of individuals are affected by their poverty status we use the survey data from the official spanish life condition survey for 2013 which contains over 16 608 observations on household members the results show that both general and fuel poverty influence the reference indifference curve but that individuals also compare themselves with their peers the proposed model also allows us to corroborate how general and fuel poverty affect well being and how effective policies can be designed to improve social welfare

electricity consumption in g7 countries a panel cointegration analysis of residential demand elasticities this article applies recently developed panel unit root and panel cointegration techniques to estimate the long run and short run income and price elasticities for residential demand for electricity in g7 countries the panel results indicate that in the long run residential demand for electricity is price elastic and income inelastic the study concludes that from an environmental perspective there is potential to use pricing policies in the g7 countries to curtail residential electricity demand and thus curb carbon emissions in the long run

the mediating role of social workers in the implementation of regional policies targeting energy poverty abstract this paper aims to provide a socio political reflection of the role played by social workers in regional policies and of the real needs of households affected by energy poverty the paper also examines the impact of technical specialised training on the ability of social workers to prevent and mitigate conditions of household energy poverty in europe the adoption of a research action participation methodological framework and a training research approach has permitted the opinions of social workers to be collected through surveys and their central role in implementing regional policies to be highlighted the conclusions obtained have made possible the construction of a self diagnosis and data collection tool which increases the ability of social workers to mediate and implement urgent mitigation measures for energy poverty finally regional policies which aim to mitigate household energy poverty are examined from the professional perspective of social workers

ethnic diversity energy poverty and the mediating role of trust evidence from household panel data for australia abstract energy poverty is now a major concern on the public policy agenda in many countries however evidence on the determinants of energy poverty is relatively scant our study contributes to the debate on the determinants of energy poverty by being the first to examine the impact of ethnic diversity on household energy poverty using 12 waves of longitudinal data from the household income and labour dynamics in australia hilda survey we find that in australia ethnic diversity is positively associated with energy poverty our preferred instrumented estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in ethnic diversity is associated with a 0 103 0 422 standard deviation increase in energy poverty depending on how energy poverty is measured this finding is generally robust to alternative ways of measuring ethnic diversity and energy poverty we identify trust as an important channel through which ethnic diversity operates and point to the need for policies that engender social capital in multicultural societies as a means to harness the benefits of diversity

measuring and monitoring fuel poverty in the uk national and regional perspectives abstract throughout the industrialised world fuel poverty is the most commonly accepted term with which to describe a household s inability to afford basic standards of heat power and light whilst the term gained widespread acceptance with the publication of the uk s fuel poverty strategy in 2001 little is known about the origins of the term itself this paper traces the earliest formulations of the concept focusing particularly on the 10 needs to spend threshold which was adopted in 1991 and remains in place some 20 years later this paper argues that understanding more about the origins of this threshold yields a more critical understanding of why fuel poverty targets in the uk have not been reached and enables a more informed approach to setting realistic targets for the future it also provides an opportunity to explore regional disparities in uk fuel poverty prevalence highlighting the extent to which rigid adherence to a 10 threshold has created an unstable regional mosaic of over estimation and under estimation

towards a new approach in measuring energy poverty household level analysis of urban india abstract measurement of energy poverty has been a missing priority in energy research there is hardly any consensus regarding whether to consider energy as a resource or capacity output or outcome and quantity or service in this paper we revisit major approaches in literature to assess energy poverty economic engineering and access based including others we critique the economic and engineering approaches for the arbitrariness of cut offs and the misplaced emphasis on less meaningful energy quantity finding the access based approach most suitable we propose a method of assessing energy poverty based on deprivation in modern cooking and lighting fuels we divide the energy poor into three groups transitional moderate and extreme energy poor we apply the method to india s urban areas of different states and union territories using the national sample survey data the results reveal energy poverty to be primarily dictated by deprivation in cooking and a greater incidence of energy poverty in larger states in contrast to conventional measures we compute the depth and severity of energy poverty only for energy poor as opposed to for the entire population these complementary measures depict energy poverty of energy poor more accurately and therefore will direct the attention of pro poor energy policies and programmes appropriately

analysis of energy poverty intensity from the perspective of the regional administration empirical evidence from households in southern europe abstract the current economic situation has increased the number of households in europe experiencing restrictions and or limitations of affordability of energy services demonstrating the urgent need to intervene in those extreme cases in which households suffer the daily consequences of what is internationally defined as energy poverty in such a context this paper presents the results obtained in a case study characterising a sample of 615 households with demonstrated energy poverty in the region of aragon spain in parallel the intensity of energy poverty in the studied cases is examined by measuring the percentage of energy expenditures with respect to income in the households that suffer it and a descriptive analysis of the main determinants of energy poverty in the homes studied is presented as well as the policy implication at regional level

poor energy poor energy saving obligations distributional effects and the malfunction of the priority group abstract the european union s energy efficiency directive forces the member states to install energy efficiency obligation schemes in a first step this paper identifies the distributional effects caused by this policy instrument which occur when energy efficiency measures are implemented phase of delivery and when its costs are passed on to the society phase of financing in the phase of delivery suppliers prefer to implement measures at the property of those customers which enable them to minimise their costs i e enterprises with large energy savings potentials and high income households who can contribute a greater share of the costs in the phase of financing distributional effects occur when the costs of the scheme are passed on from the obliged suppliers to their customers primarily affecting less competitive customers i e households and small enterprises in the british scheme the so called priority group was installed in order to decrease distributional effects and to support energy poor households in a second step this paper evaluates approaches to reduce energy poverty and indicates ineffectiveness high transaction costs and incoherency with the aims of the obligation scheme alternative approaches to tackle energy poverty are briefly described

definitions of fuel poverty implications for policy abstract this paper outlines why the definition of fuel poverty is important in policy formulation and describes how the government s current definitions evolved from the original concept it discusses the determination of income and fuel costs and the possibilities for a relative and common european measure it examines problems inherent in assessing fuel costs as a percentage of income and puts forward the arguments for a budget standard approach the paper illustrates how the size of the problem depends on the definition and chosen threshold and suggests advantages for a rating scale it illustrates how the income composition and thresholds also govern the distribution of the target populations and the relative importance of the main causal factors and examines the consequent policy implications it explores the definition of vulnerable households and the importance of severity and questions whether the uk fuel poverty strategy is targeted at households least able to afford their fuel costs as the name implies or primarily those at risk from excess winter and summer mortality and morbidity finally after examining the role of supplementary indicators it looks at the opportunities for changing the definition and comments on the government review of the definition and targets

the elephant in the energy room establishing the nexus between housing poverty and fuel poverty abstract this paper contributes to the literature on fuel poverty by bringing together the housing cost induced poverty definition and the low income high cost indicator relying on the housing cost induced poverty definition this paper identifies three dimensions of fuel poverty 1 income poverty high cost 2 housing cost induced poverty high cost and 3 fuel cost induced poverty high cost after breaking down the underlying structure of the low income high cost framework this paper proposes an alternative conceptual definition of fuel poverty and puts forward an empirical strategy which can help to identify the households most in need of financial and energy related support an application based on energy cost data in england allows us to identify several policy implications following from our proposed approach

a new measure of italian hidden energy poverty abstract as highlighted by european policymakers and academic research the global economic crisis of 2008 emphasized the energy poverty phenomenon a number of households have had to considerably reduce their energy expenditure but the traditional criteria adopted to calculate energy poverty are not able to measure their number placed in this framework the paper aims to define a new measure of hidden energy poverty suitable to identify which italian households restrain their energy consumption due to their inability to afford energy services a review of the available energy poverty metrics supports the definition of a new indicator that is able to include hidden energy poor consumers considering some key peculiarities such as the poor energy efficiency of buildings the poverty situation low energy consumption and sensitivity to the climate using data from the household budget survey provided by the italian national institute of statistics in 2018 the newly identified indicator supports the assessment of the percentage of italian households in hidden energy poverty and supplies useful insight to policymakers in their effort to support vulnerable consumers

the policy implications of energy poverty indicators abstract the methodologies and indicators that have been proposed in the literature to measure energy poverty are quite diverse some are subjective approaches based on personal or third parties perceptions of affordable warmth at home whereas others calculate objective indicators although these different proposals have already been theoretically compared an empirical comparative analysis that measures in a real case study the practical impact of the theoretical limitations detected for the different indicators was still pending the goal of this paper is thus to contribute to this debate by comparing critically the different approaches used to measure energy poverty in a real case spain in 2015 and to propose a new methodology that might be able to overcome some of the major problems that affect current methods

dynamic properties of energy affordability measures measures of affordability are applied in practice e g to assess the affordability of energy services water or housing they can be interpreted as measures of deprivation in a specific domain of consumption the large body of literature on affordability measure has little overlap with the existing literature on poverty measurement a comprehensive assessment of the response of affordability measures as a result of changes in the distribution of income or expenditure is missing this paper aims to fill this gap by providing a conceptual discussion on the dynamics of energy affordability measures several types of measures are examined in a microsimulation framework to assess their dynamic properties our results indicate that some measures exhibit odd dynamic behavior this includes measures used in practice such as the low income high cost measure and the double median of expenditure share indicator odd dynamic behavior is attributed to definitions made with respect to higher moments of the expenditure distribution definitions that rely on a percentage share of expenditure relative to income or an absolute or relative income poverty line fare well from a dynamic perspective

energy affordability and the benefits system in italy abstract in this paper we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in italy in the period from 1998 to 2011 the paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries the study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems a simulation exercise using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available shows that regardless of the affordability index adopted the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty

passive cross holding as a strategic entry deterrence this paper builds a duopoly model to study the strategic effects of cross holding on entry deterrence we show that in equilibrium the incumbent optimally chooses strictly positive cross holdings in each other to deter entry for the potential entrant

when is it rational for firms to acquire silent interests in rivals abstract the cartelizing effects of firms shareholding in rivals have been well established theoretically yet empirical instances of such are rate to nonexistent it is argued here that if the stock market is efficient in the sense that share prices reflect post share trading product market equilibria then acquiring shares in rivals is not subgame perfect for cournot oligopolies but is subgame perfect for some bertrand oligopolies acquiring a silent interest in a rival is an example of the fat cat ploy that the stock market is not a cartel maker is consistent with cournot having wide empirical application but not with bertrand

contrasting approaches to fuel poverty in new zealand we contrast two measures of fuel poverty in new zealand the first is based on estimated expenditure of over 10 of household income on fuel the second is self reported deprivation of fuel because of an inability to afford it households denoted as fuel poor on the two measures are mostly different and the findings suggest that research is needed to investigate if different households make different trade offs between expenditure on fuel and other necessities

an empirical investigation into students experience of fuel poverty abstract the trend of expansion in higher education in the uk since 1992 has created a massive demand for accommodation for students where the housing stock is one of the oldest and least efficient in europe and the private rented sector is often singled out for containing some of the least energy efficient and in worst condition properties the extent to which students factor in energy efficiency and fuel poverty concerns into their accommodation choices is explored in this paper along with the perception of the phenomena by students from a survey of 286 students it was revealed that while students themselves may not consider themselves to be living in fuel poverty the activities taken in their day to day lives suggest the opposite the impact of the housing stock on student quality of life is investigated as well

occupant behaviour as a fourth driver of fuel poverty aka warmth energy deprivation a conceptual framework for occupant behaviour as a driver of fuel poverty is presented comprising housing and use of the home heating and energy arrangements and thermal comfort household structure and dynamics health and well being household finances and social activity and relations this framework informs longitudinal analysis of movements into and out of fuel poverty among households in deprived communities in glasgow household surveys across ten years yielded a longitudinal sample of 3297 cases where initial and subsequent fuel poverty status was recorded using an experiential measure a third of households changed their fuel poverty status over time 18 moving out of fuel poverty and 16 moving in factors strongly associated with movements into fuel poverty included being a single parent or 2 27 experiencing a mental health problem or 2 74 and remaining out of work or 1 89 movement out of fuel poverty was less likely among those with infrequent family contact or 0 55 and who moved home or 0 66 home improvements had no effect upon the experience of fuel poverty it is argued that the policy problem should be considered one of warmth and energy deprivation accompanied by a broader interpretation of vulnerability to as well as from fuel poverty

assessing the fuel poverty vulnerability of urban neighbourhoods using a spatial multi criteria decision analysis for the german city of oberhausen abstract tackling fuel poverty has become an increasingly important issue on many european countries political agendas consequently national governments local authorities and ngos have established policies and programmes to reduce the fuel poverty vulnerability of households however evaluations of such policies and programmes show that they barely reach those who are most in need the reasons for this failure are diverse and include fuel poverty measurement metrics local scale data availability and policy design this raises the question of how fuel poor homes can be more effectively identified and targeted to ensure that limited local and national budgets are used to benefit those who most need help area based approaches which pinpoint spatial units highly affected by fuel poverty due to their specific characteristics offer an opportunity for creating more tailored policies and programmes in this study the author developed a gis mcda multi criteria decision analysis using an ahp analytical hierarchy process and applied the approach to the german city of oberhausen the overall issue of fuel poverty was broken down into three vulnerability dimensions heating burden socio economic and building vulnerability the relative importance of fuel poverty criteria and the dimensions were evaluated by experts and an overall fuel poverty index was created to assess the relative fuel poverty vulnerability of 168 urban neighbourhoods the analysis offers insights into the spatial pattern of fuel poverty within a city and thus provides an opportunity to channel efforts towards households in those neighbourhoods most in need it also demonstrates that a trade off between ecological and social targets should be considered in the development of future policies for tackling fuel poverty

aggregate poverty measures the way poverty is measured is important for an understanding of what has happened to poverty as well as for anti poverty policy evaluation sen s 1976 pathfinding work has motivated many researchers to focus on the way poverty should be measured a poverty measure argued by sen should satisfy certain properties or axioms and the desirability of a poverty measure should be evaluated by these axioms during the last two decades many researchers have adopted the axiomatic approach pioneered by sen to propose additional axioms and develop alternative poverty measures the objective of this survey is to provide a clarification on the extensive literature of aggregate poverty measures in this survey we first examine the desirability of each axiom the properties of each poverty measure and the interrelationships among axioms the desirability of an axiom cannot be evaluated in isolation and some combination of axioms may make it impossible to devise a satisfactory poverty measure some axioms can be implied by other axioms combined and so are not independent some others are ad hoc and are disqualified as axioms for poverty measurement based on the interactions among axioms we identify the core axioms which together have a strong implication on the functional form of a poverty measure we then review poverty measures that have appeared in the literature evaluating the interrelationships among different measures and examining the properties of each measure the axioms each measure satisfies violates are also summarized in a tabular form several good poverty measures which have not been documented by previous surveys are also included

ecological sufficiency individual liberties and distributive justice implications for policy making we investigate the prospects of voluntary ecological sufficiency for environmental and climate policy under the constraints implied by political liberalism we find that freedom of choice restricts sufficiency to rather wealthy societies and that a sufficiency threshold cannot be derived by referring to the poor sufficiency can be in conflict with the demands of social justice i e if the sufficiency threshold is below the social minimum implied by social justice benefits from sufficiency are highly related to individual perceptions such benefits cannot be expressed in a standard preference framework consequently alternative measures of welfare and inequality are required if sufficiency is a significant phenomenon in society standard environmental policies can have a pronounced interaction with voluntary sufficiency i e if quantity regulation is present overall the voluntary notion of sufficiency causes a dilemma as sufficiency is largely a matter of civil society however voluntary sufficiency is expected to make important contributions to the preservation of ecological resources if properly balanced with social and environmental policies and framed by public discursive control

reciprocal shareholding and takeover deterrence reciprocal shareholding has been argued to increase managerial power and facilitate takeover resistance the latter may translate into higher premiums in the event of an actual takeover thus benef

price and income elasticities of residential energy demand in germany we apply a quadratic expenditure system to estimate price and expenditure elasticities of residential energy demand electricity and heating in germany using official expenditure data from 1993 to 2008 we estimate an expenditure elasticity for electricity of 0 3988 and of 0 4055 for space heating the own price elasticity for electricity is 0 4310 and 0 5008 in the case of space heating disaggregation of households by expenditure and demographic composition reveals that the behavioural response to energy price changes is weaker stronger for low income top income households there are considerable economies of scale in residential energy use but scale effects are not well approximated by the new oedc equivalence scale real increases in energy prices show a regressive pattern of incidence implying that the welfare consequences of direct energy taxation are larger for low income households the application of zero elasticities in assessments of welfare consequences of energy taxation strongly underestimates potential welfare effects the increase in inequality is 22 smaller when compared to the application of rich and disaggregated behavioural response patterns as estimated in this paper