Heterogeneous effects of energy poverty convergence in Europe

Abstract

This study investigates the heterogeneous effects on convergence of energy poverty across the 28 countries in the European Union from 2006 to 2018. Unlike the existing research on convergence, which is mainly based on mean estimators, the Method of Moments Quantile Regression considers quantile distribution, and we employ it to explore the unconditional and conditional β-convergence of energy poverty. The empirical results sufficiently support the existence of both unconditional and conditional β-convergence of energy poverty, and the significance and rate of convergence are heterogeneous with the quantiles. To be specific, convergence significantly exists in countries with higher quantiles of energy poverty, and the convergence rate increases with the quantile of energy poverty. This means that countries with high levels of energy poverty tend to eliminate poverty more quickly than do countries with low levels. It is therefore of great necessity for governments to capture the dynamics of energy poverty, which could be insightful for long-term policy making for energy poverty elimination.