 Measuring energy poverty in South Africa based on household required energy consumptionYuxiang Ye and Steven Koch Energy Economics, 2021, vol. 103, issue C Abstract: This study incorporates household energy needs into Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) based poverty measures to examine energy poverty in South Africa. Our household-specific energy poverty line is founded on the application of semiparametric estimation of energy expenditure shares that are used to determine a household energy equivalence scale and, thus, the household specific required energy consumption level or poverty line. We find that headcount energy poverty is extensive, exceeding 50%, as is the gap and the severity of energy poverty. Decomposition results suggest that energy poverty rates decrease with income, and lower income groups contribute more to total poverty than higher income groups across all the three poverty indexes. Although our poverty rates are determined by the choices we have made, the model is flexible enough to allow for assumptions that differ from ours, and we provide a useful sensitivity analysis for further understanding. Keywords: Energy poverty; Required energy consumption; Foster–Greer–Thorbecke poverty measures; Developing country (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:103:y:2021:i:c:s014098832100428x DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105553 Access Statistics for this article Energy Economics is currently edited by R. S. J. Tol, Beng Ang, Lance Bachmeier, Perry Sadorsky, Ugur Soytas and J. P. Weyant More articles in Energy Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.