Who foots the bill? The uneven impact of the recent energy price shock

This box assesses the uneven economic effects of the recent surge in energy prices across households and firms in the euro area. The box first uses disaggregated data to disentangle the effects of the deterioration in the energy terms of trade on final expenditures and aggregate income, allocating the implied purchasing power losses across the household income distribution. The box then uses structural economic models to identify the energy price shock underlying the recent terms-of-trade deterioration and to gauge its direct, indirect and second-round effects on the overall economy. As regards the results, the different exposures of households to higher energy costs and lower income indicate a relatively larger impact of the energy terms-of-trade deterioration on lower-income households. The direct and indirect effects of the energy price shock mainly impacted private consumption on the expenditure side and non-energy sectors on the income side. The second-round effects spread the impact more evenly across private consumption and investment, with the government partially shielding private sector disposable income. JEL Classification: E31, E21