Price Elasticity of Residential Electricity Demand by Region in Japan: Have They Changed Since the Great East Japan Earthquake?

抄録

In this paper, I estimated the price elasticity of residential electricity demand and the change in price elasticity after the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011 for nine regions in Japan using panel data of household income and expenditure survey. The model is simple but I have carefully checked to avoid multicollinearity bias. I obtained the following results. 1) Short-term price elasticities vary from -0.19 (Tokyo) to -0.70 (Hokkaido): 2) Long-term price elasticities vary from -0.25 (Tokyo) to -0.83 (Kansai and Kyushu): 3) Although price elasticity increased after the earthquake, the increase is small and the change has not been sustained.