IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aen/journl/2004v25-01-a04.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Mechanisms for Autonomous Energy Efficiency Increases: A Cointegration Analysis of the US Energy/GDP Ratio

Author

Listed:
  • Robert K. Kaufmann

Abstract

Many forecasts for energy use and carbon emissions assume that energy intensity will decline over time for reasons unrelated to energy prices, which are termed autonomous energy efficiency increases (AEEI). A cointegration analysis of a vector error correction model indicates that the types of fuels consumed, personal consumption expenditures spent on energy, and energy prices account for changes in the ratio of energy use to economic activity in the US between 1929 and 1999. Cointegration indicates that AEEI is associated with technical and/or structural changes which allow consumers to substitute oil, natural gas, and/or primary electricity for coal, and that shift energy use from final demand to intermediate sectors. Identifying the factors responsible for AEEI allows me to: (1) show that econometric efforts to measure technical change using a deterministic trend are inconsistent with economic theory and cannot be interpreted reliably; (2) show that modeling technical change with a deterministic trend may generate forecasts that overstate reductions in energy use and carbon emissions; and (3) test the observational record for the presence of price-induced technical change and its effect on economic growth. Together, the results indicate that current estimates for AEEI may overstate future reductions in energy use and that the economic impacts of policies to reduce energy use and slow emissions may have a greater effect on economic growth than anticipated currently.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert K. Kaufmann, 2004. "The Mechanisms for Autonomous Energy Efficiency Increases: A Cointegration Analysis of the US Energy/GDP Ratio," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 63-86.
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:2004v25-01-a04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=1426
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.

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

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sen, Souvik & Ganguly, Sourav, 2017. "Opportunities, barriers and issues with renewable energy development – A discussion," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1170-1181.
    2. Raymond J.G.M. Florax & Henri L.F. de Groot & Peter Mulder, 2011. "Energy Efficiency and Technological Change," Chapters,in: Improving Energy Efficiency through Technology, chapter 1 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Peter Mulder & Henri Groot, 2007. "Sectoral Energy- and Labour-Productivity Convergence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 85-112, January.
    4. Stern, David I., 2010. "The Role of Energy in Economic Growth," Working Papers 249380, Australian National University, Centre for Climate Economics & Policy.
    5. David I. Stern & Cutler J. Cleveland, 2004. "Energy and Economic Growth," Rensselaer Working Papers in Economics 0410, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Department of Economics.
    6. Miketa, Asami & Mulder, Peter, 2005. "Energy productivity across developed and developing countries in 10 manufacturing sectors: Patterns of growth and convergence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 429-453, May.
    7. Jakob, Michael & Haller, Markus & Marschinski, Robert, 2012. "Will history repeat itself? Economic convergence and convergence in energy use patterns," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 95-104.
    8. Wan, Jun & Baylis, Kathy & Mulder, Peter, 2015. "Trade-facilitated technology spillovers in energy productivity convergence processes across EU countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 253-264.
    9. Chang, Yoosoon & Choi, Yongok & Kim, Chang Sik & Miller, J. Isaac & Park, Joon Y., 2016. "Disentangling temporal patterns in elasticities: A functional coefficient panel analysis of electricity demand," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 232-243.
    10. Ockwell, David G., 2008. "Energy and economic growth: Grounding our understanding in physical reality," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 4600-4604, December.
    11. Robert K. Kaufmann, 2014. "The End of Cheap Oil: Economic, Social, and Political Change in the US and Former Soviet Union," Energies, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 7(10), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Coccia, Mario, 2010. "Energy metrics for driving competitiveness of countries: Energy weakness magnitude, GDP per barrel and barrels per capita," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 1330-1339, March.
    13. Jean-Francois Mercure, 2012. "On the changeover timescales of technology transitions and induced efficiency changes: an overarching theory," Papers 1209.0424, arXiv.org.
    14. Peter Mulder & Raymond J.G.M. Florax & Henri L.F. de Groot, 2011. "A Spatial Perspective on Global Energy Productivity Trends," Chapters,in: Improving Energy Efficiency through Technology, chapter 2 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Lambert, Jessica G. & Hall, Charles A.S. & Balogh, Stephen & Gupta, Ajay & Arnold, Michelle, 2014. "Energy, EROI and quality of life," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 153-167.
    16. Sorrell, Steve, 2009. "Jevons' Paradox revisited: The evidence for backfire from improved energy efficiency," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1456-1469, April.
    17. Richmond, Amy K. & Kaufmann, Robert K., 2006. "Is there a turning point in the relationship between income and energy use and/or carbon emissions?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 176-189, February.
    18. Peter Mulder & Henri L.F. de Groot, 2011. "Energy-Productivity Performance Across 14 OECD Countries: The Role of Energy-Extensive Sectors," Chapters,in: Improving Energy Efficiency through Technology, chapter 3 Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Csordás, Stefan & Mevel, Simon, 2011. "When does a carbon tax on fossil fuels stimulate biofuels?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2400-2415.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F0 - International Economics - - General

    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:aen:journl:2004v25-01-a04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (David Williams). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/iaeeeea.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.