The Free Electricity Allowance and the Engel Curve

Denis Conniffe

The Economic and Social Review, 2000, vol. 31, issue 2, 173-186

Abstract: In 1994 over 18 per cent of Irish households possessed a free electricity allowance. This creates complications in using the 1994-95 Household Budget Survey to estimate an Engel curve for electricity expenditure. Ignoring the allowances leads to biased estimates of elasticities and distorts comparisons between sectors. Examining the sub-populations with and without allowances results in conclusions leading to a substantial revision of the income elasticity for household electricity expenditure and to deductions about possible current and past welfare losses inherent in the free electricity scheme.

Date: 2000
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.esr.ie/vol31_2/4Conniffe.pdf First version, 2000 (application/pdf)

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:eso:journl:v:31:y:2000:i:2:p:173-186

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Economic and Social Review from Economic and Social Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Aedin Doris ().