Price and Output Elasticities of Energy Demand for Industrial Sectors in OECD Countries

Boyoon Chang, Sung Jin Kang and Tae Yong Jung
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Boyoon Chang: Capital Economic Consulting Group, Lee & Ko Law Firm, Seoul 04532, Korea
Sung Jin Kang: Department of Economics and Graduate School of Energy and Environment, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea
Tae Yong Jung: Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Seoul 03722, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: The price and output elasticities of energy demand continue to be of interest to academia and policy institutions, having been estimated in previous studies. However, the estimated results show some inconsistencies, especially at the sectoral level, across countries. Based on our conjecture that those inconsistencies are mainly due to the effect of contingent energy intensities and partially to different units of analysis, we narrowed the analysis to the industry level and classified 16 industries into energy-intensive and less energy-intensive groups. The effects of price and output on energy demand were then compared between these two groups using 274 industry panel data across 20 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from 1978 to 2013. The results showed that the price elasticity of energy demand was consistently lower in the energy-intensive group than in the less energy-intensive group, whereas the output elasticity of energy demand was higher in the energy-intensive group than in the less energy-intensive group. Using panel differences and system generalized method of moments estimations, the dynamic elasticities of energy demand were also estimated. Energy demand in reaction to both price and output changes appeared to be more elastic in the long term than in the short term for both energy-intensive and less energy-intensive groups. These findings could be a useful reference for policy makers to deploy separate energy policies for different industries aiming for different temporal effects.

Keywords: OECD countries; price elasticity of energy demand; output elasticity of energy demand; industrial sectors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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