Electricity Consumption Patterns: Comparative Evidence from Pakistan’s Public and Private Sectors

Abstract

This study examines the behavioral aspect of Pakistan’s energy crisis by comparing electricity consumption in the public and private sectors. Specifically, we compare consumption patterns of electricity across a sample of student hostels at two public sector universities and privately run student hostels. In addition, we collect household data for a sample of students at Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) in Islamabad and compare their average electricity consumption with that of the public sector university hostels. We find that the latter’s average consumption of electricity is significantly higher than among private hostels and households. In assessing the moral hazard problem of the public sector in this context, we test the energy conservation behavior of QAU students and the university administration. The results show that students are largely indifferent to conserving electricity, while the administration pays little attention to the use of energy-efficient lights and equipment.