Structure of World Energy Demand

This book discusses the characteristics of the demand for energy—its response over time to changes in prices and in levels of economic activity and the role that energy plays as a consumption good and as a factor in industrial production. The book is particularly concerned with differences in the structure of energy demand across countries and the relationship of energy demand and energy prices to macroeconomic growth in the industrialized countries.

The results reported in this econometric study may help to resolve issues that are important to the design of both energy and economic policy—issues such as the extent to which energy demand in the long run is responsive to price changes, the possibilities for interfuel substitution, the substitutability of energy with other factors (such as manpower) of industrial production, the impact of energy prices on macroeconomic output, and the ways in which energy demand differs in industrialized and underdeveloped countries.

Economists working in energy and natural resources, econometrics, and applied microeconomics, as well as analysts and policymakers in government and business will be interested in these results. The general reader who would like to learn more about energy economics and policy can skip the more technical material and gather information about the important determinants of energy demand, the reasons for possible intercountry differences in demand, and the implications of the study for energy and economic policy in the United States and elsewhere. The book is recommended for primary or supplementary reading in courses in energy economics.