چكيده لاتين
Role and Importance of Energy, Especially Electricity and Gas, is undeniable today due to the numerous applications it has in the lives of households and individuals. On one hand, the access to these energies plays an undeniable role in increasing the well-being and economic development of countries, and on the other hand, it is recognized as one of the important indicators of societal development. In the household sector, households are considered the largest consumers of these two types of energy, and their consumption has been on the rise in recent decades. Meeting the demand for electricity and gas, as well as ensuring their supply, are among the main concerns of the country and energy sector policymakers. Therefore, an accurate estimation of an energy demand function, taking into account the demographic characteristics of households, can be a powerful tool in understanding consumption preferences and guiding necessary pricing policies.
In this research, in the first section, by introducing a valid demand system (an almost ideal demand system) based on microeconomic theories, the price and income effects on the consumption of gas and electricity in Iranian households were examined and analyzed. Additionally, demographic variables extracted from the socio-economic characteristics of households were applied in this system to gain a suitable perspective for investigating the factors affecting household consumption patterns. The results of estimating this demand model showed that household electricity is a normal and highly elastic good, providing a good insight for the implementation of pricing policies. Furthermore, household gas is also a normal but less elastic good. The results indicated that these two household energies have a substitution relationship with each other. It was also found that among the population variables, the educational level of the household head, the residential area, and the type of home ownership have a direct and positive effect on increasing the share of household expenditures relative to total expenditures, while the household size variable only affects the change in the share of electricity expenses.
In the second section, to examine the heterogeneity of the effects of the variables of interest during the distribution of expenditures, a demand equation for household electricity and gas was estimated using a conditional regression called quantile regression. The results of this analysis showed that income elasticities, own-price elasticities, and cross-price elasticities during the distribution of household expenditures are different, providing a specific insight into the price and income effects in each quantile. It was also demonstrated that, except for the educational level variable of the household head, the other household population variables affect the level of household electricity and gas expenditures, and this effect varies among different quantiles.
