Saving energy in residential buildings: the role of energy pricing

• DOI: 10.1007/s10584-021-03164-3
• Publication Date: 2021-07-21T00:02:40Z
• Authors: Jens Ewald; Thomas Sterner; Eoin Ó Broin; Érika Mata
• Keywords: Elasticity; Econometric analysis

A zero-carbon society requires dramatic change everywhere including in buildings, a large and politically sensitive sector. Technical possibilities exist but implementation is slow. Policies include many hard-to-evaluate regulations may suffer from rebound mechanisms. We use dynamic econometric analysis of European macro data for the period 1990-2018 to systematically examine importance changes energy prices income on residential demand. find long-run price elasticity -0.5. The total around 0.9, if we control increase that goes towards larger homes other factors, 0.2. These findings have practical implications climate policy EU buildings framework.The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10584-021-03164-3.