The cost of clean energy transition in rural China: Evidence based on marginal treatment effects

Meng Li, Tianyu Jin, Shenglong Liu and Shaojie Zhou

Energy Economics, 2021, vol. 97, issue C

Abstract: The clean energy transition in residential sector in rural China is of great significance for climate change mitigation. Using rural household survey from 2005 to 2008, we estimate the marginal treatment effects of using gas on energy expenses in rural China based on the generalized Roy model. Generally, using gas increases the rural household expense on fuel by 65%–80% on average. Essential heterogeneity are proved across different households. The households with lower income, lower educational attainment, smaller floor space are less willing to use gas as their main fuel. The policy-relevant treatment effects show that the household expenses on fuel would increase by at least 80% if the popularity of gas doubled, which might worsen the financial condition of poor families. The policy simulation results imply more flexible rural energy policies should be concerned for heterogeneous families.

Keywords: Rural residential energy transition; Coal-to-gas policy; Marginal treatment effect; Policy-relevant treatment effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988321000724
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:97:y:2021:i:c:s0140988321000724

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105167

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
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().