Local area crime and energy poverty

Abstract

Energy poverty is a distinct form of poverty that the International Energy Agency estimates could affect as many as one billion people globally. In high-income countries, it is primarily an affordability issue resulting from some combination of having low-income, high expenditure on energy and living in energy inefficient buildings. Rates of energy poverty are typically higher in low-income neighborhoods, in which local area crime rates are also higher. Here, we match longitudinal data at the household level with local area crime rates to estimate the causal effect of local area crime on the probability of being in energy poverty. Our baseline estimates suggest that a standard deviation increase in crime rate causes a 4–5% increase in the likelihood of being in energy poverty. Our instrumental variable estimates are considerably higher, suggesting these are lower bound estimates. We find that social capital, perceived safety and physical activity are channels through which crime influences energy poverty and that being internal on Locus of Control dampens the effect of crime on energy poverty.