Macroeconomic time-series evidence that energy efficiency improvements do not save energy

Stephan B. Bruns, Alessio Moneta and David Stern

CAMA Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: The size of the economy-wide rebound effect is crucial for estimating the contribution that energy efficiency improvements can make to reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. We provide the first empirical general equilibrium estimate of the economy-wide rebound effect. We use a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model that is estimated using search methods developed in machine learning. We apply the SVAR to U.S. monthly and quarterly data, finding that after four years rebound is around 100%. This implies that policies to encourage cost-reducing energy efficiency innovation are not likely to significantly reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

JEL-codes: C32 Q43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:camaaa:2019-21

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