Irreversible Price-Induced Efficiency Improvements: Theory and Empirical Application to Road Transportation
Irreversible Price-Induced Efficiency Improvements: Theory and Empirical Application to Road Transportation
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不可逆转的价格引发的效率提高：理论与实证在道路运输中的应用
DOI：
10.5547/issn0195-6574-ej-vol14-no4-12
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发表时间：
1993
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
F. Wirl
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
I. O. Walker;F. Wirl
自1986年以来的能源需求似乎与文献中报告的恒定收入和价格弹性的概念不一致。尽管真实的燃料成本同时大幅度下降，真实的收入同时增加，但能源需求增长仍然缓慢。这项调查区分，因为它是，两种不同的价格效应，应该解释这种明显的不对称的能源需求。第一个影响是技术效率，因此在很大程度上是不可逆转的。第二个影响围绕消费者的决定，因此是可逆的。价格效应的这种二分法为研究能源需求（在这种情况下，公路运输）提供了一个适当的框架。此外，从这个框架得出的预测和政策建议不同于标准的对称规格。价格的适度上涨将影响消费者的行为，而只有汽油价格足够高，才能进一步提高效率。目前能源需求的低增长率掩盖了服务一级的高得多的增长，因此，随着这些效率收益的消失（如果价格水平或价格预期仍然很低），能源需求的增长可能会加速。
Energy demand since 1986 seems inconsistent with the notion of constant income and price elasticities reported in the literature. Energy demand growth remained sluggish despite the simultaneous substantial reduction in real fuel costs and increases in real income. This investigation differentiates, as it were, two different price effects that should explain this apparent asymmetry in energy demand. The first effect is embedded in the technical efficiency and therefore largely irreversible. The second effect revolves around consumers' decisions and hence is reversible. This dichotomy of the price effect provides a suitable framework to study energy demand (in this instance, road transport). Moreover, the projections and policy recommendations following from this framework differ from the standard symmetric specification. Moderate price increases will affect consumers' behaviour, while only sufficiently high gasoline prices will trigger further efficiency improvements. The present low growth rates of energy demand mask a much higher growth at the service level, therefore energy demand growth may accelerate as these efficiency gains die out (if price levels or price expectations remain low).