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The Environmental Impact of Sharing: Household and Urban Economies in CO2 Emissions

Author

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  • Anders Fremstad

    (Economics Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins)

  • Anthony Underwood

    (Department of Economics, Dickinson College)

  • Sammy Zahran

    (Economics Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins)

Abstract

Studies find that per capita carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) decrease with household size and urban density, so the demographic trends of declining household size and dense urbanization produce countervailing effects with respect to emissions. We posit that both trends operate on a common scaling mechanism realized through the sharing of carbon- intensive expenditures. With detailed data from the United States Consumer Expenditure Survey, we construct a dataset of CO2 emissions at the household level and leverage a unique measure of residential density to estimate household and urban economies. We find that dense urban areas have per capita emissions 23 percent lower than rural areas, and that adding an additional member to a household reduces per capita emissions by about 6 percent. We also show that household economies are about twice as large in rural as compared to dense urban areas. These results suggest that the carbon benefits of dense urbanization have the potential to offset the effects of declining household size.

Suggested Citation

  • Anders Fremstad & Anthony Underwood & Sammy Zahran, 2016. "The Environmental Impact of Sharing: Household and Urban Economies in CO2 Emissions," Working Paper Series 2016-01, Dickinson College, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:dic:wpaper:2016-01
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    8. Pottier, Antonin & Combet, Emmanuel & Cayla, Jean-Michel & de Lauretis, Simona & Nadaud, Franck, 2021. "Who emits CO2 ? Landscape of ecological inequalities in France from a critical perspective," FEEM Working Papers 311053, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    9. Wu, Wenchao & Kanamori, Yuko & Zhang, Runsen & Zhou, Qian & Takahashi, Kiyoshi & Masui, Toshihiko, 2021. "Implications of declining household economies of scale on electricity consumption and sustainability in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    10. Zhang, Yimeng & Wang, Feng & Zhang, Bing, 2023. "The impacts of household structure transitions on household carbon emissions in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    11. Jingbo Fan & Aobo Ran & Xiaomeng Li, 2019. "A Study on the Factors Affecting China’s Direct Household Carbon Emission and Comparison of Regional Differences," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-14, September.
    12. Schuster, Antonia & Lindner, Michael & Otto, Ilona M., 2023. "Whose house is on fire? Identifying socio-demographic and housing characteristics driving differences in the UK household CO2 emissions," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    13. Rui Huang & Shaohui Zhang & Changxin Liu, 2018. "Comparing Urban and Rural Household CO 2 Emissions—Case from China’s Four Megacities: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-17, May.
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    18. Haisen Wang & Gangqiang Yang & Ziyang Yue, 2023. "Breaking through ingrained beliefs: revisiting the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Emissions; Urban Density; Sharing; Household Size; Energy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis
    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location

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