IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v37y2009i4p1561-1570.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring structural change and energy use: Decomposition of the US economy from 1997 to 2002

Author

Listed:
  • Weber, Christopher L.

Abstract

The steadily increasing focus on energy production and consumption has led to growing research attention to patterns of energy use within economies. Of particular interest has been comparing the driving forces of increasing efficiency and economic structural change. Input-output analysis (IOA) and decomposition analysis have become critical tools for performing such analyses. This study analyzes aggregate energy use in the United States in 1997 and 2002 to discover the causes of changing energy usage and flows. Results show that rising population and household consumption acted to drive up energy demand, but this driving force was offset by considerable structural change within the economy, particularly related to a quickly increasing trade deficit in manufacturing goods. Thus, while total energy intensity, the ratio of energy use to economic output, declined by approximately 12% between 1997 and 2002, changes in the structure of the economy explain this drop more than increased energy efficiency. The level of aggregation at which decomposition analyses are run was identified as a crucially sensitive parameter for the determination of structural change, and future studies should specifically address the amount of detail necessary to adequately measure changes in economic structure.

Suggested Citation

  • Weber, Christopher L., 2009. "Measuring structural change and energy use: Decomposition of the US economy from 1997 to 2002," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1561-1570, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:1561-1570
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(08)00765-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ang, B. W., 2004. "Decomposition analysis for policymaking in energy:: which is the preferred method?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1131-1139, June.
    2. Liu, Na & Ang, B.W., 2007. "Factors shaping aggregate energy intensity trend for industry: Energy intensity versus product mix," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 609-635, July.
    3. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 2008. "An Empirical Analysis of Energy Intensity and Its Determinants at the State Level," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3), pages 1-26.
    4. Norihiko Yamano & Nadim Ahmad, 2006. "The OECD Input-Output Database: 2006 Edition," OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers 2006/8, OECD Publishing.
    5. Erik Dietzenbacher & Bart Los, 1998. "Structural Decomposition Techniques: Sense and Sensitivity," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 307-324.
    6. Erik Dietzenbacher & Jesper Stage, 2006. "Mixing oil and water? Using hybrid input-output tables in a Structural decomposition analysis," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 85-95.
    7. Murtishaw, Scott & Schipper, Lee, 2001. "Disaggregated analysis of US energy consumption in the 1990s: evidence of the effects of the internet and rapid economic growth," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(15), pages 1335-1356, December.
    8. William A. Pizer, 2005. "The case for intensity targets," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(4), pages 455-462, July.
    9. Wiedmann, Thomas & Lenzen, Manfred & Turner, Karen & Barrett, John, 2007. "Examining the global environmental impact of regional consumption activities -- Part 2: Review of input-output models for the assessment of environmental impacts embodied in trade," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 15-26, February.
    10. Ang, B.W. & Liu, F.L., 2001. "A new energy decomposition method: perfect in decomposition and consistent in aggregation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 537-548.
    11. Ang, B.W. & Zhang, F.Q., 2000. "A survey of index decomposition analysis in energy and environmental studies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 1149-1176.
    12. Hoekstra, Rutger & van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M., 2003. "Comparing structural decomposition analysis and index," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 39-64, January.
    13. Rutger Hoekstra & Jeroen van den Bergh, 2002. "Structural Decomposition Analysis of Physical Flows in the Economy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 23(3), pages 357-378, November.
    14. Schipper, Lee & Ting, Michael & Khrushch, Marta & Golove, William, 1997. "The evolution of carbon dioxide emissions from energy use in industrialized countries: an end-use analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(7-9), pages 651-672.
    15. Leontief, Wassily, 1970. "Environmental Repercussions and the Economic Structure: An Input-Output Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 52(3), pages 262-271, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Zhao, Xiaoli & Li, Na & Ma, Chunbo, 2012. "Residential energy consumption in urban China: A decomposition analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 644-653.
    2. Liu, Hongtao & Xi, Youmin & Guo, Ju'e & Li, Xia, 2010. "Energy embodied in the international trade of China: An energy input-output analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 3957-3964, August.
    3. Inglesi-Lotz, Roula & Blignaut, James N., 2011. "South Africa’s electricity consumption: A sectoral decomposition analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 4779-4784.
    4. Arik Levinson, 2009. "Technology, International Trade, and Pollution from US Manufacturing," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 2177-2192, December.
    5. Wang, H. & Ang, B.W. & Su, Bin, 2017. "Assessing drivers of economy-wide energy use and emissions: IDA versus SDA," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 585-599.
    6. Su, Bin & Ang, B.W., 2012. "Structural decomposition analysis applied to energy and emissions: Some methodological developments," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 177-188.
    7. Okushima, Shinichiro & Tamura, Makoto, 2011. "Identifying the sources of energy use change: Multiple calibration decomposition analysis and structural decomposition analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 313-326.
    8. Lenzen, Manfred, 2006. "Decomposition analysis and the mean-rate-of-change index," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 185-198, March.
    9. Ma, Chunbo, 2014. "A multi-fuel, multi-sector and multi-region approach to index decomposition: An application to China's energy consumption 1995–2010," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 9-16.
    10. Tol, Richard S.J. & Pacala, Stephen W. & Socolow, Robert H., 2009. "Understanding Long-Term Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the USA," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 425-445, May.
    11. Wang, Wenchao & Mu, Hailin & Kang, Xudong & Song, Rongchen & Ning, Yadong, 2010. "Changes in industrial electricity consumption in china from 1998 to 2007," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3684-3690, July.
    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. Cellura, Maurizio & Longo, Sonia & Mistretta, Marina, 2012. "Application of the Structural Decomposition Analysis to assess the indirect energy consumption and air emission changes related to Italian households consumption," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 1135-1145.
    14. Ma, Chunbo, 2010. "Account for sector heterogeneity in China's energy consumption: Sector price indices vs. GDP deflator," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 24-29, January.
    15. Duan, Cuncun & Chen, Bin, 2020. "Driving factors of water-energy nexus in China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    16. Jennings, Mark & Ó Gallachóir, Brian P. & Schipper, Lee, 2013. "Irish passenger transport: Data refinements, international comparisons, and decomposition analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 151-164.
    17. Zeus Guevara & Oscar Córdoba & Edith X. M. García & Rafael Bouchain, 2017. "The Status and Evolution of Energy Supply and Use in Mexico Prior to the 2014 Energy Reform: An Input-Output Approach †," Economies, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-17, March.
    18. Hong, Jingke & Li, Clyde Zhengdao & Shen, Qiping & Xue, Fan & Sun, Bingxia & Zheng, Wei, 2017. "An Overview of the driving forces behind energy demand in China's construction industry: Evidence from 1990 to 2012," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 85-94.
    19. Peter Mulder, 2015. "International Specialization, Structural Change and the Evolution of Manufacturing Energy Intensity in OECD Countries," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    20. Kulionis, Viktoras & Wood, Richard, 2020. "Explaining decoupling in high income countries: A structural decomposition analysis of the change in energy footprint from 1970 to 2009," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).

    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:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:1561-1570. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    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.