Energy poverty in the UK: Is there a difference between rural and urban areas?

Deborah Roberts, Esperanza Vera-Toscano and Euan Phimister

No 204213, 89th Annual Conference, April 13-15, 2015, Warwick University, Coventry, UK from Agricultural Economics Society

Abstract: Energy poverty is a significant policy issue in the UK. An argument often raised is that rural households are more likely to be energy poor due to the nature of rural housing stock and also the more limited choice of energy sources in rural areas. However empirical evidence to support this argument is limited. This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey to explore whether the incidence and dynamics of energy poverty varies between rural and urban areas in the UK. In addition to descriptive analysis, discrete hazard models of energy poverty exit and re-entry are estimated and used to explore the impact of an increase in energy price. The results indicate that the influence of certain housing and personal characteristics differs by place of residence. After accounting for differences in the observed characteristics, the experience of energy poverty in urban areas was found to be on average longer with a higher probability of energy poverty persistence. Vulnerability to energy price increases was found to be high with a 20% increase in price leading to a 74% increase in the probability rural residents being trapped in energy poverty for five or more years. It is argued that a combination of household type and spatial targeting of policy support is required.

Keywords: Environmental; Economics; and; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15
Date: 2015-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-eur and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/204213/files/D ... ts_et_al_AES2015.pdf (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:ags:aesc15:204213

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.204213

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 89th Annual Conference, April 13-15, 2015, Warwick University, Coventry, UK from Agricultural Economics Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().