IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aen/journl/ej39-3-fouquet.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer Surplus from Energy Transitions

Author

Listed:
  • Roger Fouquet

Abstract

Energy transitions have led to major advances in human wellbeing. However, little evidence exists about the scale of the net benefits. By developing a new method for identifying the demand curve, this paper estimates the consumer surplus associated with heating, transport and lighting over more than two hundred years and identifies the gains from key energy transitions. For certain energy transitions, the increase was dramatic, reflecting the transformations in society and lifestyles that mobility and illumination provided in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet, the net benefits related to heating technologies only rose modestly. Finally, due to saturation effects of the demand for energy services, future technological developments and energy transitions may benefit consumers (though not necessarily society as a whole) less than those in the past.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger Fouquet, 2018. "Consumer Surplus from Energy Transitions," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    • Handle: RePEc:aen:journl:ej39-3-fouquet
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=3082
    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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David I. Stern and Astrid Kander, 2012. "The Role of Energy in the Industrial Revolution and Modern Economic Growth," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    2. Robert J. Gordon, 2016. "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10544.
    3. Roger Fouquet, 2011. "Divergences in Long-Run Trends in the Prices of Energy and Energy Services," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 5(2), pages 196-218, Summer.
    4. Tim Leunig & Joachim Voth, 2011. "Spinning Welfare: the Gains from Process Innovation in Cotton and Car Production," CEP Discussion Papers dp1050, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Jeremy Greenwood & Karen A. Kopecky, 2013. "Measuring The Welfare Gain From Personal Computers," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 51(1), pages 336-347, January.
    6. Fouquet, Roger, 2011. "Long run trends in energy-related external costs," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2380-2389.
    7. Roger Fouquet & Peter J.G. Pearson, 2006. "Seven Centuries of Energy Services: The Price and Use of Light in the United Kingdom (1300-2000)," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 139-178.
    8. Roger Fouquet, 2008. "Heat, Power and Light," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4061.
    9. Broadberry,Stephen & Campbell,Bruce M. S. & Klein,Alexander & Overton,Mark & van Leeuwen,Bas, 2015. "British Economic Growth, 1270–1870," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107070783, October.
    10. Manuel Frondel & Jorg Peters & Colin Vance, 2008. "Identifying the Rebound: Evidence from a German Household Panel," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4), pages 145-164.
    11. Jon Nelson & Peter Kennedy, 2009. "The Use (and Abuse) of Meta-Analysis in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics: An Assessment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 42(3), pages 345-377, March.
    12. William Nordhaus, 2014. "Estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon: Concepts and Results from the DICE-2013R Model and Alternative Approaches," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 000.
    13. Robert J. Johnston & Randall S. Rosenberger, 2010. "Methods, Trends And Controversies In Contemporary Benefit Transfer," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 479-510, July.
    14. Brouwer, Roy, 2000. "Environmental value transfer: state of the art and future prospects," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 137-152, January.
    15. Hunt, Lester C. & Ryan, David L., 2015. "Economic modelling of energy services: Rectifying misspecified energy demand functions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 273-285.
    16. Robert Allen & Robert C. Allen, 2007. "Pessimism Preserved: Real Wages in the British Industrial Revolution," Economics Series Working Papers 314, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    17. Fouquet, Roger, 2014. "Long run demand for energy services: income and price elasticities over two hundred years," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 59070, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Hanemann, W Michael, 1991. "Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept: How Much Can They Differ?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(3), pages 635-647, June.
    19. Joel Mokyr & Chris Vickers & Nicolas L. Ziebarth, 2015. "The History of Technological Anxiety and the Future of Economic Growth: Is This Time Different?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 31-50, Summer.
    20. Johnston, Robert J. & Rolfe, John & Zawojska, Ewa, 2018. "Benefit Transfer of Environmental and Resource Values: Progress, Prospects and Challenges," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 12(2-3), pages 177-266, November.
    21. Peter Cohen & Robert Hahn & Jonathan Hall & Steven Levitt & Robert Metcalfe, 2016. "Using Big Data to Estimate Consumer Surplus: The Case of Uber," NBER Working Papers 22627, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Measuring Benefits from Energy Transitions
      by tambo0986 in NEP-HIS blog on 2018-02-22 05:57:33

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fouquet, Roger & O'Garra, Tanya, 2022. "In pursuit of progressive and effective climate policies: Comparing an air travel carbon tax and a frequent flyer levy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Roger Fouquet & Ralph Hippe, 2022. "Twin Transitions of Decarbonisation and Digitalisation: A Historical Perspective on Energy and Information in European Economies," Working Papers 08-22, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    3. Saunders, Harry D. & Roy, Joyashree & Azevedo, Inês M.L. & Chakravarty, Debalina & Dasgupta, Shyamasree & De La Rue Du Can, Stephane & Druckman, Angela & Fouquet, Roger & Grubb, Michael & Lin, Boqiang, 2021. "Energy efficiency: what has research delivered in the last 40 years?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114344, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Cédric Clastres & Haikel Khalfallah, 2020. "Retailers' strategies facing demand response and markets interactions," Working Papers hal-03167543, HAL.
    5. Watanabe, Chihiro & Tou, Yuji & Neittaanmäki, Pekka, 2020. "Institutional systems inducing R&D in Amazon- the role of an investor surplus toward stakeholder capitalization," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    6. Whiting, Kai & Carmona, Luis Gabriel & Brand-Correa, Lina & Simpson, Edward, 2020. "Illumination as a material service: A comparison between Ancient Rome and early 19th century London," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van de Ven, Dirk Jan & Fouquet, Roger, 2017. "Historical energy price shocks and their changing effects on the economy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 204-216.
    2. Fouquet, Roger, 2015. "The allocation of energy resources in the very long run," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 62367, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ravshonbek Otojanov & Roger Fouquet & Brigitte Granville, 2023. "Factor prices and induced technical change in the industrial revolution," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 599-623, May.
    4. Roger Fouquet, 2015. "Lessons from energy history for climate policy," GRI Working Papers 209, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    5. Emmanuel Bovari & Victor Court, 2019. "Energy, knowledge, and demo-economic development in the long run: a unified growth model," Working Papers hal-01698755, HAL.
    6. Roger Fouquet & Peter J.G. Pearson, 2012. "The Long Run Demand for Lighting:Elasticities and Rebound Effects in Different Phases of Economic Development," Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1).
    7. Fouquet, Roger, 2016. "Lessons from energy history for climate policy: technological change, demand and economic development," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 67785, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Roger Fouquet, 2014. "Editor's Choice Long-Run Demand for Energy Services: Income and Price Elasticities over Two Hundred Years," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(2), pages 186-207.
    9. Agovino, Massimiliano & Bartoletto, Silvana & Garofalo, Antonio, 2019. "Modelling the relationship between energy intensity and GDP for European countries: An historical perspective (1800–2000)," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 114-134.
    10. Kander, Astrid & Stern, David I., 2014. "Economic growth and the transition from traditional to modern energy in Sweden," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 56-65.
    11. Robert J. Johnston & Kevin J. Boyle & Maria L. Loureiro & Ståle Navrud & John Rolfe, 2021. "Guidance to Enhance the Validity and Credibility of Environmental Benefit Transfers," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 575-624, July.
    12. Figus, Gioele & Swales, J.Kim & Turner, Karen, 2018. "Can Private Vehicle-augmenting Technical Progress Reduce Household and Total Fuel Use?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 136-147.
    13. Victor Court, 2018. "Energy Capture, Technological Change, and Economic Growth: An Evolutionary Perspective," Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 1-27, September.
    14. Hermine Vedogbeton & Robert J. Johnston, 2020. "Commodity Consistent Meta-Analysis of Wetland Values: An Illustration for Coastal Marsh Habitat," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 75(4), pages 835-865, April.
    15. Newbold, Stephen C. & Johnston, Robert J., 2020. "Valuing non-market valuation studies using meta-analysis: A demonstration using estimates of willingness-to-pay for water quality improvements," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    16. de Groot, Rudolf & Brander, Luke & van der Ploeg, Sander & Costanza, Robert & Bernard, Florence & Braat, Leon & Christie, Mike & Crossman, Neville & Ghermandi, Andrea & Hein, Lars & Hussain, Salman & , 2012. "Global estimates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary units," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 50-61.
    17. Erik Brynjolfsson & Avinash Collis & Felix Eggers, 2019. "Using massive online choice experiments to measure changes in well-being," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 116(15), pages 7250-7255, April.
    18. Carey W. King & John P. Maxwell & Alyssa Donovan, 2015. "Comparing World Economic and Net Energy Metrics, Part 1: Single Technology and Commodity Perspective," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-26, November.
    19. Peter A. O'Connor & Cutler J. Cleveland, 2014. "U.S. Energy Transitions 1780–2010," Energies, MDPI, vol. 7(12), pages 1-39, November.
    20. Fouquet, Roger, 2012. "The demand for environmental quality in driving transitions to low-polluting energy sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 138-149.

    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:ej39-3-fouquet. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: David Williams (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaeeeea.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.