Powering up China: Income Distributions and Residential Electricity Consumption
Maximilian Auffhammer（University of California, Berkeley） & NBER
Catherine D. Wolfram（University of California, Berkeley ）& NBER
March 26, 2014
Abstract
Current forecasts suggest that the vast majority of growth in energy demand will
come from the developing world, and that China will play a major part in that growth.
This paper presents evidence suggesting that the shape of the income distribution,
which is typically omitted from forecasting models, plays a major role in driving house-
hold acquisition of energy-using durable goods in rural China. We use province-level
data for rural households to show that the share of the population living above the
poverty line is an important determinant of household appliance holdings even control-
ling for average household income.
Keywords: Durable Goods, Adoption, Electricity Consumption, Income Inequality
