IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v115y2025p357-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Use Really Tell Us about Profligate Consumption?

Author

Listed:
  • Severin Borenstein

Abstract

High residential volumetric electricity prices are partially justified as placing more of the cost burden on less prudent households, so-called "energy hogs." I show that the difference in means between above-median and below-median household consumption declines by 60–90 percent after adjusting for three factors: number of household occupants, local climate variation, and adoption of rooftop solar. Failure to make these adjustments disproportionately hurts low-income households. Focusing on residential electricity is especially problematic because nationally it accounts for less than 15 percent of energy and less than 10 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, while such penalty pricing is virtually nonexistent elsewhere in the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Severin Borenstein, 2025. "Energy Hogs and Energy Angels: What Does Residential Electricity Use Really Tell Us about Profligate Consumption?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 115, pages 357-362, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:115:y:2025:p:357-62
    DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20251111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20251111
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E218482V1
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/23145
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pandp.20251111?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • L94 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Electric Utilities
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:115:y:2025:p:357-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.