The Demand for Energy-Using Assets among the World's Rising Middle Classes

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Gertler, Paul J.; Shelef, Orie; Wolfram, Catherine D.; Fuchs, Alan
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University; The World Bank
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20131455
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1366-1401
• 关键词: electrification; replacement; EMPLOYMENT; OWNERSHIP; progresa; poverty; GROWTH; MARKET; cash

摘要

We study household decisions to acquire energy-using assets in the presence of rising incomes. We develop a theoretical framework to characterize the effect of income growth on asset purchases when consumers face credit constraints. We use large and plausibly exogenous shocks to household income generated by the conditional-cash-transfer program in Mexico, Oportunidades, to show that asset acquisition is nonlinear, depends, as predicted in the presence of credit constraints, on the pace of income growth, and both effects are economically large among beneficiaries. Our results may help explain important worldwide trends in the relationship between energy use and income growth.