Authors
Ray Galvin
Publication date
2020/1/1
Book
Inequality and Energy
Pages
145-171
Publisher
Academic Press
Description
Although the EU is one of the wealthiest societies the world has ever known, around 10% of households cannot heat their homes adequately, rising to almost 40% in some countries. This chapter tests the hypothesis that a country’s level of economic inequality—measured by the Gini coefficient of income after tax and welfare transfers—is a predictor of that country’s percentage of households unable to heat their homes. I perform sets of multivariate regression analyses for EU countries plus the UK, for each of the years 2010–16. I use the natural logarithm of the percentage unable to heat their homes, as the dependent variable. For independent variables, I use the Gini coefficient (after tax and transfers), GDP per capita, wealth per household, heating degree-days, household debt-to-income ratio and the percentage of “inadequate” homes, i.e., showing leaks, mold or rot. In all analyses I find the Gini coefficient a …
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