Does Energy Consumption Respond to Price Shocks? Evidence from a Regression-Discontinuity Design

Bastos, Paulo ; Castro, Lucio ; Cristia, Julian ; Scartascini, Carlos

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: APPROACH;    AVERAGE PRICE;    AVERAGE PRICES;    BALANCE;    CAPS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6785
RP-ID  :  WPS6785

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper exploits unique features of arecently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas inBuenos Aires to estimate the short-run impact of priceshocks on residential energy utilization. The scheduleinduces a nonlinear and non-monotonic relationship betweenhouseholds' accumulated consumption and unit prices,thus generating exogenous price variation, which isexploited in a regression-discontinuity design. The resultsreveal that a price increase causes a prompt and significantdecline in gas consumption. They also indicate thatconsumers respond more to recent past bills than to expectedprices, which argues against the assumption that consumershave perfect awareness of complex price schedules.