The elephant in the energy room: Establishing the nexus between housing poverty and fuel poverty

Abstract

This paper contributes to the literature on fuel poverty by bringing together the “housing-cost-induced-poverty” definition and the “low-income-high-cost” indicator. Relying on the housing-cost-induced-poverty definition, this paper identifies three “dimensions” of fuel poverty: 1) income-poverty-high-cost; 2) housing-cost-induced-poverty-high-cost; and, 3) fuel-cost-induced-poverty-high-cost. After breaking down the underlying structure of the low-income-high-cost framework, this paper proposes an alternative conceptual definition of fuel poverty and puts forward an empirical strategy which can help to identify the households most in need of financial and energy-related support. An application based on energy cost data in England allows us to identify several policy implications following from our proposed approach.