This workshop is intended for researchers and doctoral students in economics who are interested in resource and environmental economics. The webinar is led by a team of researchers composed of Geir B. Asheim (Oslo University), Hassan Benchekroun (McGill University), Sophie Bernard (Polytechnique Montréal), Etienne Billette de Villemeur (Université de Lille, UQAM), Robert Cairns (McGill University), Justin Leroux (HEC Montréal), and Charles Séguin (UQAM).

This workshop on natural resource and environmental economics will host Moustapha Thiam, PhD student at UQAM, and Rémy Molinier, student at HEC.

→ This event will be in English.

• Moustapha Thiam, PhD student at UQAM

Abstract to be published soon

• Rémy Molinier, student at HEC
  State Energy Use Is (Mostly) a Policy Choice: Prices, Efficiency, and the Energy Demand Frontier

Abstract

State-level aggregate energy use is often portrayed as an inevitable consequence of fundamental factors like GDP per capita or climate. We argue instead that, conditional on these fundamentals, cross-state differences in energy demand are largely shaped by public policy. Using a panel of U.S. states from 2006–2022, we first apply an LMDI decomposition to show that recent reductions in per-capita energy use are overwhelmingly driven by lower energy intensity rather than lower activity or milder weather. We then estimate a stochastic demand frontier for total per-capita energy consumption and decompose variation into frontier, inefficiency, and noise. Finally, we use relative-importance methods to quantify how much variation in the frontier is associated with policy-controlled levers—specifically energy prices and energy-efficiency policies—versus structural and climatic factors such as GDP per capita, sectoral mix, building floor area, and heating and cooling degree days. Prices and efficiency policies explain more frontier variation than GDP or climate.