International inequality in energy intensity levels and the role of production composition and energy efficiency: An analysis of OECD countries

By J. Duro, Vicent Alcántara, Emilio Padilla. 2010

124 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract This paper analyses the inequality of energy intensity levels between OECD countries, its causes and evolution. The paper develops a methodology which allows the inequality in energy consumption per capita to be decomposed into explanatory factors. It also analyses the contribution of different groups of countries to this inequality. The results show that although differences in affluence are the most significant factor in explaining inequality in energy consumption per capita, the inequality in energy intensity levels plays a prominent role in reducing the inequality in energy consumption per capita over the analysed period. The paper also develops a methodology which determines the importance of different production structures and energy efficiency of productive sectors in the differences in energy use per unit of GDP between the countries analysed. The results show that sector specialisation becomes increasingly important in explaining the inequality of energy intensity, while there is a significant trend towards the convergence of energy efficiency between countries sector by sector. This trend would explain the decreasing weight of energy intensity as an explanatory factor of the inequalities in energy consumption per capita.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Environmental Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7cd0c593201248d476d484ac5fb6d60460e4191f

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Citations in the corpus

Dynamics and determinants of energy intensity in the service sector: A cross-country analysis, 1980–2005 (2014, background): “…energy data and economic data from different sources, which typically characterizes empirical cross-country studies in the field of energy economics (see, for example, Duro et al. 2010, Duro and Padilla 2011, Mairet and Decellas 2009, Miketa and Mulder 2005, Mulder and De Groot 2007, Unander 2007).”
Energy Efficiency Determinants: An Empirical Analysis of Spanish Innovative Firms (2015, background): “Existing studies corroborate the possibility that the reduction of inequalities in energy intensity between countries could be attributed to the adoption of EE improvements (Greening et al., 1997; Duro et al., 2010).”
Energy efficiency convergence across countries in the context of China's Belt and Road initiative (2018, methodology): “its improved models are used frequently in existing research [11, 23, 24, 26].”
A meta-analysis investigation of the direction of the energy-GDP causal relationship: implications for the growth-degrowth dialogue (2014, background): “…to provide essential input for the requisite categories (Adams and Shachmurove, 2008; Carrion-i-Silvestre et al., 2005; De Janosi and Grayson, 1992; Duro et al., 2010; Ferguson et al., 2000; Holtedahl and Joutz, 2004; Huang, 1993; Mishra et al., 2009a; Narayan et al., 2010; Sari and Soytas, 2007;…”
Structural Change and Convergence of Energy Intensity across OECD Countries, 1970-2005 (2012, unknown): “1 Notable exceptions include Mulder and De Groot (2011) and Duro et al. (2010). intensity trends at various levels of aggregation.”