Understanding the response of consumers to electricity prices is essential for crafting efficient energy market regulations, evaluating climate change policy, and investing optimally in infrastructure. We study the dynamics of residential electricity demand by exploiting price variation arising from a natural experiment: the introduction of an Illinois policy that enabled communities to select electricity suppliers on behalf of their residents. Participating communities experienced average price decreases in excess of 10 percent in the two years following adoption. Using a flexible difference-in-differences matching approach, we estimate a one-year price elasticity of -0.14 and three-year elasticity of -0.29. We also present evidence that consumers increased usage in anticipation of the price changes. Finally, we estimate a forward-looking demand model and project that the price elasticity converges to a value between -0.30 and -0.35 after ten years. Our findings demonstrate the importance of accounting for long-run dynamics in this context.

中文翻译：

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电力需求的长期动态：来自市政聚合的证据

了解消费者对电价的反应对于制定有效的能源市场法规、评估气候变化政策以及优化投资基础设施至关重要。我们通过利用自然实验产生的价格变化来研究住宅电力需求的动态：引入伊利诺伊州政策，使社区能够代表其居民选择电力供应商。在采用后的两年内，参与社区的平均价格下降了 10% 以上。使用灵活的差异匹配方法，我们估计一年价格弹性为 -0.14，三年弹性为 -0.29。我们还提供了证据表明消费者在预期价格变化时会增加使用量。最后，我们估计了一个前瞻性的需求模型，并预测十年后价格弹性会收敛到 -0.30 到 -0.35 之间的值。我们的研究结果证明了在这种情况下考虑长期动态的重要性。