Income and price elasticities of electricity demand: Aggregate and sector-wise analyses

Cointegration and vector error correction modeling approaches are widely used in electricity demand analysis. The study rigorously examines the determinants of electricity demand at aggregate and sectoral levels in Pakistan. In the backdrop of severe electricity shortages, our empirical findings give support to the existence of a stable long-run relationship among the variables and indicate that electricity demand is elastic in the long run to both income and price at aggregate level. At sectoral level, long-run income and price elasticity estimates follow this pattern except in agricultural sector, where electricity demand is found elastic to output but inelastic to electricity price. On the contrary, the coefficients for income and price are rather small and mostly insignificant in the short run. We employed temperature index, price of diesel oil and capital stock at aggregate and sectoral levels as exogenous variables. These variables account for most of the variations in electricity demand in the short run. It shows that mechanization of the economy significantly affect the electricity demand at macro level. Moreover, elastic electricity demand with respect to electricity price in most of the sectors implies that electricity price as a policy tool can be used for efficient use and conservation. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.