Household-specific Energy Expenditure and Inflation in the Czech Republic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F45773009%3A_____%2F22%3AN0000033" target="_blank" >RIV/45773009:_____/22:N0000033 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://katalog.vupsv.cz/fulltext/PP_04-2022.pdf" target="_blank" >https://katalog.vupsv.cz/fulltext/PP_04-2022.pdf</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Household-specific Energy Expenditure and Inflation in the Czech Republic

Original language description

The Czech Republic is currently suffering from one of the highest inflation rates in Europe. While a large share of the country’s inflation is due to rising energy prices, the professional literature currently lacks any information on the impacts of energy inflation on different consumer groups. Therefore, this policy paper analyses household-specific energy expenditure and inflation employing a novel dataset and via the application of weighted least squares and weighted average methodologies. The results indicate that the energy expenditure share of total expenditure is most affected by the number of children and pensioners in the household, i.e. increases of 6.6% and 24% respectively for each extra child or pensioner. This result was found to apply particularly to gas and automobile fuel expenditure. An increase in income of one quintile decreases the share of energy expenditure by 3.6%, with the decrease being most pronounced for gas. Furthermore, an increase in the number of person living in flats lowers electricity expenditure by 2.1%, possibly due to the higher energy efficiency of flats. The average Czech household faced an energy price increase of 45.2% between June 2021 and 2022. The groups that faced the highest inflation in percentage terms comprised the self-employed, inhabitants of large cities, high income earners, and single-parents. However, in absolute terms, the average household suffered from an annual loss of CZK 10 000 of purchasing power per capita, with the most affected groups being pensioners, inhabitants of small municipalities, homeowners, and low rather than high income households. This follows from the lowest income households losing CZK 21 000, which is comparatively significantly more than the CZK 26 000 lost by high income households. In addition, the policy paper also discusses the implications of the findings and provides recommendations for policymakers, including the provision of group-specific financial support and legislative incentives to promote energy-saving behaviour.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50206 - Finance

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů