Does Retirement Affect Household Energy Consumption Structure? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Xiaofeng Lv, Kun Lin, Lingshan Chen () and Yongzhong Zhang
Additional contact information
Xiaofeng Lv: School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China
Kun Lin: School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China
Lingshan Chen: School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China
Yongzhong Zhang: School of International Business, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 611130, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-14

Abstract: Whether retirement can affect household energy consumption structure is an interesting topic in relation to environment and aging. Based on China’s Urban Household Survey (UHS) data, we adopt a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to identify this causal effect. The empirical results show that households suddenly reduce their overall energy consumption by about 2.5 percent when they retire. Specifically, retirement greatly reduces household energy consumption expenditure related to work by about 55.4 percent, reduces non-durable products by about 12.1 percent, and reduces dining out consumption by about 55.3. Moreover, the mechanism analysis shows that householders reduce their social activities after retirement and spend much more time at home, so that the direct energy consumed increases and the indirect energy consumed decreases. The reduction in household non-durable energy consumption expenditure after retirement is closely related to the reduction in work-related energy consumption. Our conclusion has passed a series of validity tests and robustness tests. Our finding implies that it is valuable to design energy policies by considering these causal effects.

Keywords: retirement; household energy consumption; policy design; regression discontinuity design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/12347/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/12347/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:19:p:12347-:d:927887

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().