Does Energy Consumption Respond to Price Shocks? Evidence from a Regression‐Discontinuity Design
利用布宜诺斯艾利斯天然气阶梯定价带来的外生价格变化，通过断点回归发现价格上涨会立即显著减少居民用气量，且消费者对近期账单的反应强于预期价格。
We exploit unique features of a recently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas in B uenos A ires to estimate the short‐run impact of price shocks on residential energy utilization. The schedule induces a non‐linear and non‐monotonic relationship between households' accumulated consumption and unit prices, thus generating exogenous price variation, which we exploit in a regression‐discontinuity design. We find that a price increase causes a prompt and significant decline in gas consumption. The results also indicate that consumers respond more to recent past bills than to expected prices, which argues against an assumption of perfect awareness of complex price schedules by consumers.