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Due to difficulties in accessing detailed energy modelling and usage data that are required to estimate energy needs that are responsive to local circumstances, we propose an equivalence scale approach to the determination of required energy consumption. Our method requires the estimation of energy equivalence scales that are used to rescale reference household energy consumption and, thus, yield household-specific energy requirements. We apply the method using readily available income and expenditure data, finding that estimated required energy is well above actual energy expenditure for low- and middle-income households, which is consistent with an expectation that basic energy needs for poor households may not be met. The proposed approach is general enough to incorporate other features that might be deemed relevant and available in other settings, and, therefore, can be used to examine the affordability component of SDG 7, undertake energy poverty analysis or design appropriate policies.

During the past decade, hundreds of new state laws have increased the certainty, severity and swiftness of punishment for drunk driving. These new laws can deter drunk driving only to [...]

AbstractAlthough contraception allows women to delay childbirth, stop unwanted childbearing, and postpone childbirth, not all contraception is equally effective, equally easy to access, or equally easy to use. Due to heterogeneity in women’s contraception opportunities and choices, in the effectiveness of the contraception used and even in luck, women differ in both their birth intervals and their age at first childbirth. We explore this heterogeneity, theoretically, incorporating contraception effectiveness and uncertainty (along with potential earnings, contraception costs, and net child benefits) into a potential mother’s childbearing decisions. Empirically, these factors are incorporated into a first hit time duration model, focusing on time to first birth, estimated with data from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The results provide nuanced insights into the income-fertility puzzle. Our evidence suggests that educated women start childbearing later, and are better able to use contraception, even less effective contraception. Thus, there are education-related heterogeneities in contraceptive effectiveness. Further, we find that women using more effective contraception start childbearing at a later age, as do women with better access to contraception. Both improved female education and improved access to modern contraception have the potential to hasten the fertility transition in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This study combines energy affordability and accessibility into a multidimensional energy poverty measure, which we stratify by rural and urban locale. Accessibility considers a number of binary indicators related to the type of energy used for a series of household activities, while affordability is determined by the ratio of household required energy expenditure to total expenditure. We employ an equivalence scale approach to estimate household energy requirements using publicly available household expenditure survey data. Our results suggest extensive urban–rural disparities across our multidimensional indicators—37% of rural households are affordability deprived, which is nearly double urban affordability deprivation; the rural–urban differences are at least double, when it comes to clean cooking, lighting, space heating, water heating and multidimensional headcount poverty. After splitting the households by degrees of energy poverty, it is found that the extreme energy-poor are more likely to be income-poor. However, urban extreme energy-poor is driven by affordability deprivation, while more than half of the rural extreme energy-poor are deprived in both affordability and accessibility.